Maximum Ride: The Definition of Normal
by alpha-range
Summary: Sequel to TGE. Max and the flock have already urdergone their fair share of set-backs, but when a near-fatal injury results in several unpredictable circustmances, more than just their lives are on the line; including Max and Fang's relationship. Fax.
1. Famous Last Words

**A/N - IMPORTANT.**

First off; THIS IS THE SECOND IN A SERIES. If you're newly joining this series new, I suggest that you start with The Guardian Experiment, and then come back to this one - it'll make this whole thing a lot clearer.

Secondly; I had planned to wait until _all_ of the chapters were written before I started, so that I didn't back myself up (XD), but I was worried that you guys would forget about me! So, I've come up with a spur-of-the-moment fill-in, Nicci plan: a chapter a week until I can get them all done.

Which brings me to the main part of this annoying long authors note... **I'm holding a vote!**

I figured that since I'm updating once a week... why not let you pick the day? **_So, faithful readers of Definition of Normal... why not R E V I E W and let me know what day would be best for you?_**

Anyway... onto the story!

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**Chapter One- Famous Last Words**

"Did we really have to leave so early?" Nudge groaned, I twisted my head to look at her, relieved to note that Max had already assumed the job of reassuring her that yes, we really _did_ have to leave so early. If we didn't want to be ripped to shreds by erasers, at least.

"It's not even completely light yet!" She complained loudly, and little Angel giggled before swooping in-between Max and the younger avian-American; Nudge thankfully agreed to play tag with Iggy and the two younger siblings, and we were saved from another round of what Iggy had affectionately called "The Nudge channel".

All Nudge, all the time.

Max swooped next to me, batting my wing gently with her own and offering me a grin. The cold wind had left a flush across her cheeks, but her brown eyes were alight and sparkling; blonde hair blowing in the breeze – falling out of her braid. I hadn't been sure what the makeover artists were going to do to her when we'd gone, but I had to admit that I loved the blue and pink streaks in her hair and the new layers.

Framing her face gently in a mixture of waves and curls.

At least, that's how my (male) stylist had described it dreamily as Max had come into the room looking for me, followed by a deep blush (on his behalf, somehow she hadn't heard) and me accidently stabbing a coat hanger into his ribs.

"What?" She asked, raising and hand to her face to tuck a pink streak behind her hair.

"Nothing," I replied easily, hiding the fact that I was inwardly a little embarrassed at being caught staring with practiced ease. "Where are we headed next?"

"I was thinking maybe Washington DC; those files that we found mention it a lot, so maybe we could dig some stuff up, and have some fun whilst we're at it." She stated easily, clearly happy with herself for coming up with a plan so quickly. Honestly, I had to give her props for it, there was no way that I could come up with such a concrete plan in such a small amount of time.

It was one of many reasons that she was the leader, and I was happily her second-in-command.

"Sounds like a plan to me," I offered, batting her wing with my own in a similar gesture to her welcoming one, and deliberately sending her off balance. "Whoops."

"Fang," She growled warningly, unable to hide the laughter from her eyes as she launched herself at me faster than I could even hope to outrun. Instead, I closed my wings and let myself free fall for a few feet, before whipping my wings out and surging forward; glancing over my shoulder in time to see Max do a practiced flip in mid-air and come zooming straight back the way that she'd just come.

Her intent was clear on her face, along with a message.

_"Game on."_

Anything to distract her from the events of last night, particularly the one involving Jeb and Ari, was fine by me, and I grinned - swooping over, and then under, The Gasman and Iggy who laughed at the sight before joining in. Within moments the tables had turned; Iggy, Nudge and Angel against Max, The Gasman and myself.

For the first time in a long time, we were acting like kids.

Of course, that's when everything went pear-shaped.

The Gasman (who I'd been protecting from behind whilst Max "fought off" Nudge and Angel) stopped suddenly, and I crashed into him, shortly followed by Iggy. The three of us fell for a long moment in a tangle of limbs, and I was surprised when Max didn't intervene. Instead, she seemed wholly concentrated on a strange black cloud in the distance, a hand still gripping Angel's arm tightly.

Frowning, I flew level with her, squinting and trying to make out what exactly the thing heading towards us was.

"Storm cloud?" I offered almost hopefully, but Max shook her head.

"Too fast."

"Flock of birds?" Another desperate stab in the dark.

"Too big."

"Flying monkeys?" That was The Gasman, before you ask.

"Worse," Max sighed, and I almost expected her to come up with a joke about another flying animal. What followed made my heart plummet, and certainly wasn't funny. "Flying erasers."

The atmosphere changed pretty drastically after that statement, and within minutes the newly formed flock were ready to fight and defend. I figured that my mind wasn't the only mind full of questions such as _"Since when were there flying erasers?"_ but all we could do for now was fight.

"Angel, Nudge; you take the back. Iggy, Gasman; flank us. Fang, you can take the front with me." Max shot me an award-winning smile and it was all I could do to nod and turn back to the front, just in time to be greeted by an old friend.

Max's wings nearly stopped beating, and I barely contained my own surprise as Ari – the same Ari that we'd left lying dead in a subway tunnel less than twelve hours ago – flew at me with the grace of an elephant and the accuracy of... well, an eraser.

Which is pretty much the most inaccurate thing that I can think of.

Concerns about the supposedly dead Ari forgotten as my body filled with adrenaline, I span out of the way and wasted little time in launching an attack of my own.

I still owed him from the beach, which was probably the only reason that Max hadn't attempted some sort of tag-team manoeuvre by now. She knew me a little better than that. I had a score to settle, and I was going to do it myself.

Ari recovered quickly, swerving to avoid what would have been a nasty kick to the head just in the nick of time. A quick glance showed that the two of us had been moving gradually further away from the flock, who were now fighting erasers some twenty feet away.

They seemed to be doing pretty well, working in pairs (other than Max) to despatch the remaining three erasers.

Clearly, The School had underestimated us.

And I'd underestimated Ari.

He used my distraction as an opened to lunge for me, claws fully spread, and I had no chance to escape. There was no way out; even closing my wings wouldn't get me out of the way fast enough that there wouldn't be serious damage.

All I could do was brace myself.

For a long moment, everything moved in slow motion, and then something was careening into me, sending me spinning sideways out of Ari's reach. By the time that I span back around, Max and Ari were fighting vigorously in the air. Clearly Max had been a lot closer than I'd realised. I zoomed back in time to see Ari's eyes widen at something (although I wasn't sure what) before he took off back the way that he'd been come.

I almost regretted that his part-morph didn't include a tail, because I was sure that it would have been tucked between his legs.

"Thanks," I panted to Max, who was looking a little worse for wear. "You saved my skin back there; he didn't get you, did he?"

Max shook her head, and I noted that Ari had gotten her face pretty good, along with the top of her shoulder – where his claws had completely ripped through her sweater and shirt, leaving bloody gashes in their wake.

"Nah, I got here a lot faster than I even thought possible." She shook her head in apparent amazement, before turning to the others, who were starting to group up with us. "Report?"

"I'm good." I shrugged, wiping what felt like blood (although I was sure that it wasn't mine) off my jacket sleeve as I did so.

"A few scratches. I've had worse." Nudge shrugged, and the others agreed heartily.

"Well," Max smiled tightly. "They'll certainly think twice before messing with us again, huh? Now, let's get going."

She was met with various terms of agreement, but I couldn't help noticing that the flush across her cheeks was lessening a little faster than was normal, and the sweat on her face didn't seem to be disappearing.

I figured that I was probably just being paranoid, but something didn't seem to be right with her.

"Maybe we should land," I muttered to her, nodding at the beach beneath us. Startled, she turned to face me. "Check everyone out, you know."

"I think we should keep flying. Get as far away as possible," She reasoned, tucking a loose strand of blue-streaked hair behind her ear. "Just in case the erasers come back."

There wasn't really much that I could say to that, so I nodded and turned back to the random streak of blood on my jacket; trying to work out where it had come from. I was sure that I hadn't hurt Ari that badly, and if it was coming from me I was sure that I'd have noticed it.

So who did that leave?

I glanced up at Max, and once more felt my heart drop and thud painfully as before my eyes her wings folded, eyes fluttered shut and she began to plummet.

"_Max_!"

Angel screamed her name, and Nudge shouted something, but I was already moving. Angling myself downwards and closing my wings to make a vaguely "V" shape and propel myself down faster, I spiralled towards her; catching her only a few feet down.

Her face was pale, a thin sheen of sweat covering her face as her jacket fell away to reveal her bloodied shirt. Clearly, I'd been right; the blood on my jacket hadn't been from myself or Ari. It had been from Max.

Blood was soaking through my jacket at an alarming pace.

"We need to land!" I ordered the others, part of me noticing that the younger three were crying, even as the other part of me was reasoning that I didn't have time. Max didn't have time; I needed to land and stop the bleeding as fast as I could.

Within minutes the five of us touched down, and Iggy and Nudge threw their jackets on the ground to make a make-shift bed to keep the worst of the sand from her. I snapped at them to cover their wings, and they pulled their hoodies out of their backpacks and over their heads unthinkingly.

"Angel, grab some water bottles. Nudge, I need you to rip my spare shirt into strips; Gazzy, soak some of them in antiseptic Iggy, lift her feet onto my backpack."

I struggled to remember what Jeb had taught us to do if we were ever in this situation, but was fairly sure that he'd mentioned all three of those things. Wincing as I pulled her shirt back from her stomach to reveal four deep lacerations on her side – all four bleeding profusely – I collected some of the strips of cloth off Nudge and pressed them to her side, applying pressure.

The blood soaked through them quickly, and I replaced them with a fresh handful. It didn't seem to be helping.

"Hey!" A voice shouted and I jumped, glancing up into the frightened face of two human men – clearly out for a morning run. "Are you kids alright? Oh, god. Tony; call an ambulance! She's hurt!"

Nudge's fearful eyes met my own, and I could feel myself panicking. There was nothing I could do, Max needed the help.

"Get out of here." I ordered quickly and quietly - wishing that Max and I had taken the time to teach the four of them more of our secret language; it sure would have been useful now - keeping my hands pressed against Max's still-bleeding stomach.

"What?"

"You heard me. This could be a trap, the four of you should get out of here. If everything's alright I'll come back for you—"

"No." There was a fierce determination to Iggy's sightless eyes.

"What?"

"No, we're not splitting up. We're in this together now, that's what Max said."

I made to argue, but was cut off by the sound of blaring sirens.

It looked like I didn't have a choice.


	2. The Deal

**EDITS;;**

**25/12/2010;** It was brought to my attention that Anne never introduced herself, and Fang just knew who she was. That was a bit of a stupid mistake, so I found the time to go through (on christmas day, I might add) and fix a few things up, also adding another six-hundred words or so. Although a re-read isn't required or anything, it would be cool if you could :)

**_Christmas (or other) reviews = love. Remember... there are prizes at stake here._**

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**Chapter Two- The Deal**

"I'm sorry, son, I can't let you in there." The doctor said gravely, reaching out to place what was supposed to be a reassuring hand on my shoulder. The white coat that he was wearing gave it an adverse affect, and he quickly dropped his hand when he felt me tense beneath it.

"You don't understand, I _have_ to see her. I have to know that she's okay." I replied, crossing my arms and glaring at him.

He heaved a sigh, running a hand through his greying hair; the bags under his tired grey eyes conveying his exhaustion. I really hoped that _he_ wasn't going anywhere near Max with any sharp instruments, he looked tired enough to make a potentially fatal mistake, and that wasn't going to happen whilst I was around.

"Look, son," I really wished that he'd stop calling me that. "The doctors are doing all that they can for your friend. She's in surgery right now, and they'll do their best to stop the internal bleeding and stabilise her, alright?"

It wasn't _alright_. Not by a long shot, but it appeared that this doctor was nearly as stubborn as me.

Not that I was going to give up that easily. I opened my mouth to argue my point further, but another voice interrupted, earning a deep glare for me. How could these people not see how important it was that I saw Max?

"I'll take it from here Dr Andrews," The man said, with a flash of a badge. The doctor sighed and shot me a meaningful glance, but nodded and headed down the corridor and back towards the room that currently held Max.

I wondered whether if I was to make a break for it I'd get there before anyone could get to me. Probably not, although part of me was thinking that it might almost be worth attempting it. The more reasonable part of me knew that, logically, that could end with me being kicked out of the hospital, so I just barely managed to restrain myself.

"I'm Daniel West; FBI agent." The gray-suited man informed me, flashing the badge for a second time. "The hospital called us. We'd like to talk to the six of you."

Well, Max was currently out of commission, so that plan was a bust; it looked like they'd have to make do with a measely five out of six deal. "About what, exactly?"

"Well, it seems you're in a spot of bother, son."

There was that wretched word again.

"Aren't most people in hospitals 'in a spot of bother'?" Iggy quipped as him and the other three came to stand next to me, escorted by four more FBI agents. One for each of us.

Excellent.

Daniel frowned. "Look, your friend in there? It's bad. Really bad. Help us, and we'll help her, okay?"

"Aren't you supposed to be the good guys?" I spat, angered by the man's response; the fact that he'd threatened (however inadvertantly) Max.

"We are the good guys, Kid," He sighed, before nodding at a dark door down the corridor. "Sometimes that's just hard to see. If you'd like to follow us, someone will bring you some food through whilst you answer our questions."

They weren't really giving us much choice, so I nodded.

Iggy mummbled something under his breath that sounded highly innapropriate in response, and I resisted the urge to grin a little, despite everything. To my left, little Angel slipped her hand into my own; her blue eyes looking up at me. It took me a second to place the emotion that they held, before it clicked with a pang: _fear_. This innocent, six-year-old couldn't trust anyone, not even someone who claimed to be from the FBI - a person who a normal child would spill everything to in an instant. I squeezed her hand reassuringly, blocking all negative thoughts from my mind as if to shield her, my other hand finding The Gasman's shoulder and squeezing it.

Moments later, and the five of us were sitting around separate desks in a surprisingly dark room; each of us opposite our very own FBI agents. Daniel had decided that he'd "tackle" me, and so far wasn't having much success, much to his disdain.

"What's your name, kid?" He asked, leaning forwards on his elbows in a fashion that I assumed he meant to be intimidating.

"Nick." I replied easily, leaning back in my chair and crossing my arms; the picture of relaxation. Psychology 101. It was one of the first things that Jeb had taught us, and it wasn't exactly hard to slap on a poker face - clearly unnerving Dan for a long moment.

"Nick what?" He jotted the fake name down, before his brown eyes rose to meet mine again.

"Just Nick."

He sighed. "Alright then, 'Just Nick', are you and your friends... like the girl?"

"Jenna." I corrected easily, using the same fake name as I had back in New York; I wasn't sure why, it certainly didn't seem to fit her, but it was the first thing that popped into mind, and hesitation would only raise suspicions. That was, on the off chance that they hadn't already been raised.

"Right," Daniel ran his hand through his hair. "Are you and your friends like _Jenna_?"

I shrugged, and could see the frustration written over Daniel's face and his white-knuckled grip on his pen. For a second he said nothing, clearly struggling to keep his temper under wraps, before something in him just seemed to snap. Bingo.

"Look here—"

"I'll take it from here, Agent West." A woman's voice interrupted the FBI agent's rant tersely, and I turned part-way in my seat to see a blonde woman with severe grey eyes and a smartly pressed business suit staring the elder man down. Daniel sighed, slammed his pad and pen down on the table, and left the room with an agitated stride. She stood her ground the entire time, watching him go before visibly relaxing.

I couldn't help it, I grinned.

The woman walked calmly forwards and slipped into the just evacuated chair, consulting her co-workers notes before looking back up at me and grinning.

"Sorry about Daniel." She apologised, sounding almost genuine. "He's got a bit of a temper on him. He's a good agent, though... actually, no, he's not. I don't know why he hasn't been fired yet, but my superiors insist that we keep him on; I'm Anne, by the way. Agent Anne Walker."

She shrugged, smiling again, clearly trying to win me over.

She was going to have to try a lot harder.

"So," She continued, completely unperturbed by my lack of reaction. "Here's the thing. We covered for you back in New York, when the six of you got seen in the restaurant, and we've been looking for you ever since. We did you a favour, and we're offering more... if you co-operate."

Well, at least she was a little more forward than Daniel had been.

"We didn't ask for favours." I shrugged, reclining further into my seat and feeling suddenly paranoid about any possible signs of my wings. Not that I showed it, of course. No, on the outside, I was as perfectly calm and detached and always... call it a gift.

"No," Anne agreed with yet another smile. "You didn't, but we helped you regardless. As it is, there's no way that you'd be able to pay for Jenna's medical care. I know that, and you know that, so let's not pretend, okay? I think we're all a little old for kid's games."

"What's your point?" I sighed, sitting up a little straighter.

"The FBI is willing to pay for the best medical care available, _and_ offer you a place to stay whilst Jenna recovers; in return, you have to let us study you. The studies would be non-invasive, and carried out by myself. It's only fair." She said evenly.

I raised an eyebrow. "_It's only fair?"_ I found myself questioning inwardly. Did she have a clue who she was talking to? _It's only fair_? She'd have more luck with, 'If you don't let us study you, I'll rip out your spine and let you use it as a walking stick.' Which wouldn't have worked, for the record, the Flock were well conditioned to threats.

"And what if we say no? What if, as soon as Jenna gets a little better, we bust out of this place and never look back? What then?"

Anne shrugged, leaning back in her own chair and crossing her arms in her lap. "Then Jenna's wounds get infected, or they don't heal properly, and she gets sick. Heck, she could even _die_. I think you're smarter than that, and even if you aren't, you seem to care about her an awful lot. Are you really willing to risk that?"

I wasn't, but I knew that Max would be, and she was the one running this show.

"Say I agree," I said slowly. "Where would we stay? What studies would be carried out? Where would _they_ be?"

"As I said, the studies would be completely non-invasive; just watching you fly and taking notes, observing your natural behaviour... for scientific purposes, of course, and honestly a little due to personal interest. As for where you'd stay, you'd be staying at my house; in West Virginia – which is also where the studies would be carried out."

There was a long pause as I processed this information.

"So," Anne said, leaning forward again, face serious. "What do you say?"

I sighed, slumping back in my seat once more, knowing that (for now, at least) I was beaten.

"Alright. We'll do it."

Max was going to kill me.

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Not a very long one, sorry, but I had to give you something to last you until after christmas!

Voting's still open, guys :)

**Also**, do you celebrate Christmas? If so, what's your favourite part?

**_Review!_**


	3. Are you crazy?

**Chapter Three- Are you crazy?**

Max looked fragile.

Small and vulnerable, with tubes and wires sticking out of her; monitors recorded heart rate, blood pressure and countless other things that I didn't understand. The doctors had assured us that she was stable, and stood a good chance of recovering quickly. She still looked weaker than I'd ever seen her, and it was a frightening realization.

I'd come so close to losing her. _We'd_ come so close to losing her.

She wasn't as invincible as she'd led us all to believe… not by a long shot, and yet, she was willing to do anything for us, for _me_. Even allow herself to be killed.

But here she was; weak and small, but alive. I guessed that was what was important.

The nurses had warned me that the drugs would be wearing off soon, so she'd probably be in a considerable amount of pain, and rather grumpy.

I didn't care.

The Flock had fallen asleep in the adjoining room, but I'd been unable to close my eyes; worried that when I opened them again it would be to the realisation that she was gone for good, and there was no way to go back.

Ridiculous, but true.

Most of all, I just wanted her to wake up, and I was going to remain in this very chair next to her bedside until she did.

The monitor recording her heart rate picked up speed a little, and I looked up; the nurses had told me that it was a sign that she was waking up, and sure enough, when I looked closer her eyelids were fluttering.

"Max?" I asked, squeezing her hand. After a long moment, she squeezed it back, blinking sleepily. "Oh, thank god."

"Fang?" Max asked, blinking hard. "What's going on? Where am I?"

The white walls and beeping machines seemed to register and her heart rate picked up even more as she began to panic, trying to sit up quickly and wincing as she did so, falling back on the pillow, swearing loudly.

"Hey, hey. It's alright; we're not back at The School. We're in a hospital, can you remember what happened?"

She frowned. "I remember tackling Ari off you, and then... nothing."

I nodded, having been told to expect this. "He managed to get you good with his claws and you collapsed. Someone saw us when we landed and called an ambulance... and now we're here."

Max groaned, resting her head back against the pillows.

"I hate hospitals."

I chuckled a little at the look on her face. "I know, look, I have to talk to you about something—"

"Jenna, you're awake! How wonderful," Anne interrupted, sweeping into the room and smiling brightly. I turned to face her, frowning and fully aware of Max's half-glare-half-confused-look behind me.

"Excuse me?"

"Oh, I'm sorry. Has Nick not got round to telling you about our little arrangement, yet? I'm FBI agent Anne Walker. You can call me Anne. You and your… friends are going to be staying with me whilst you recover."

There was a long silence, and Anne's grin faltered a little. "You know what? Why don't I leave you two alone for a while?"

She marched straight back out of the door, the door swinging shut behind her, and leaving Max and I in a rather uncomfortable situation.

"Fang?" Max's voice was deceptively mild as I refused to meet her gaze. Sighing inwardly, I turned to face her, the anger clear in her eyes. "Was she for real?"

"You need to recover in a proper house, and we couldn't pay for the medical bills—"

"So?" Max snapped. "We could have taken off!"

"And then what?" I snapped. "You get sick and there's no one to help you? You die, and leave the five of us to fend for ourselves? I don't think so."

There was a long moment of silence after my little outburst before I deflated a little, sinking back in my chair and rubbing the back of my neck.

"Look, I'm sorry, but—"

"No," Max sighed. "You know what? I don't like this. In fact, I _hate_ this, but I'd probably have done the same thing if was you."

I sighed, relieved that she wasn't mad at me; shaking my head a little, I moved to sit next to her on the hospital bed, stroking her hair gently.

"So you're not mad?"

"No. I'm _furious_," Max frowned, shaking her head a little, despite the fact that she was leaning into my hand as she said it.

"Can I make it up to you?" I grinned, sweeping down and capturing her lips in my own. She laughed a little, but kissed me back even as she did so.

"Are the others alright?" She asked, as she pulled away.

"Fine," I smiled, running my hand through her hair again, my face still only inches away from hers. "They're in the other room, sleeping."

I nodded to the glass wall, where their sleeping forms were just apparent through the tinted windows. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Max studying them all individually, ensuring that they were all fine.

She'd adapted to the role of leader well enough, it would appear.

"So, we're staying with Anne?" She asked, "And I'm called Jenna?"

I grinned a little, rolling my eyes. "I panicked."

"So you're… Nick?" Another nod. "And the others."

I coughed a little, rubbing the back of my neck and retreating to my seat.

"Well, Iggy's now Jeff,"

Max nodded slowly. "Jeff. Nice, normal name… alright, I can roll with this."

"Angel went for Ariel, which is… semi-normal, I guess." I hesitated a little, a Max raised her eyebrow. "Nudge is Tiffany-Crystal, which is a step-down from Armani or Trixie-Belle or whatever name she wanted in the first place."

Max snickered a little, and then realised we were still missing a flock member. "And The Gasman?" She glanced wearily over at the still sleeping eight-year-old boy.

"Zephyr." I coughed, rubbing the back of my neck again and peeking up at Max from between my eyelashes.

"_Zephyr?" _Max shot upright in her bed, crying out in pain when she jarred her side. Instinctively, I reached a hand out to steady her, but she batted it away, frowning. "I'm fine. _Zephyr_? Really?"

I frowned. "Yes, Zephyr. Count yourself lucky, he wanted Captain Terror; 'as in T-E-R-O-R. Poor kid couldn't even spell it,"

I could see Max desperately trying to keep back a smile at that one, but to her credit, she managed to refrain. "So you let him go with Zephyr?"

I shrugged, biting back a grin of my own. "Hey, Angel's not the only one with bambi eyes, you know."

Finally giving in, Max laughed, before wincing and sucking in a deep breath and wincing again.

"Broken ribs," I frowned. "Probably should've warned you earlier."

"Probably," Max glared, leaning back on the pillows again. "So, how long are we thinking?"

I grimaced a little. "One to two months. Maybe longer."

"So, what? Like, a week to three weeks?"

"No. That was the super-healing estimate."

There was a long silence, as Max just looked at me, and then she swore. Loudly. I blinked in surprise, usually I was the one putting the proverbial money in the swear-box.

"A month? You've got to be kidding me! I'm not staying here for a month." She swung her legs around so quickly that I didn't have a chance to stop her, and attempted to rip the IV out of her arm. I grabbed her hand just in time, slapping the other one away.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" I snapped, forcefully shoving her back onto the pillow. She yelped a little bit, but I knew better than to let go of her arm as I forced her to lie down again, she'd only pull the needle out of her arm. Her hand grasped my arm, and I gave her credit for her grip – despite the drugs coursing through her system.

"Please don't make me stay here," She said, and I had to admit that the hollow brokenness in her eyes scared me. "_Please_, Fang."

I frowned, but found myself pulling back and shaking my head anyway. "You have to stay here, I'm sorry. You have to get better."

"I can't do that here," She hissed, her hand still grasping my arm; I was almost certain that it would bruise, but said nothing. "You have to be able to see that. It's too much like the school."

I hesitated. "Stay here for a week, and I promise I'll get you out after that."

For a long moment I almost thought she'd say yes; I guess that was pretty naïve of me. "Two days."

Most of me wanted to argue that two days wasn't long enough, but the other part of me knew how much I'd be hating being in her situation. "Fine," I sighed. "Two days."

She sighed, relaxing back into the pillows as I noted how tired she looked, moving to sit on the bed next to her and leaning over to kiss her head, I whispered gently to her, "Sleep, Max."

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**(A/N: Sorry that its a little short/boring/whatever. Hopefully they'll get a little better!) REVIEW? (please?)**


	4. Max Vs Anne

**Chapter Four- Max Vs Anne**

Two days was too long for Max.

If I was honest, two days in a hospital was pushing it for me, too. I could see the almost desperate look in her eyes whenever she thought no-one was watching. The white walls and floors, the beeping of the machines and the constant needles were bringing back memories that neither of us wanted to relive.

The only thing keeping us sane was The Flock.

Nudge's incessant chatter allowed us a while to forget where we were; Angel and The Gasman's pleas to be allowed to get junk food out of the vending machines allowed us a while to forget we were mutant bird kids, and Iggy's insistences that the chemicals in the storage cupboard across the corridor may eventually save our skins and we should therefore let him swipe a few, allowed us to forget how serious this entire situation was.

But she was still relieved when the morning of the third day arrived.

"This is ridiculous!" Anne snapped. "You can't expect to just walk out of here after barely three days of treatment for a wound that serious—"

"Actually, I do." Max said simply, eyes fierce with determination. I glanced briefly to the room where the others were. Angel and The Gasman had retreated as soon as they glimpsed the first signs of a fight, and Nudge and Iggy had been quick to follow them under the pretence of looking after the kids.

Wimps.

"Dr Hannings, maybe you'll reason with our patient here—"

Dr Hannings, the balding old man who Max had talked to less than half an hour ago, rubbed the back of his neck, clearly embarrassed. "Actually, Jenna and I have already had words. I know that it doesn't seem logical, but she has a point. This environment has proven to be nothing but detrimental to her health. She's stressed out, and that's hardly going to help her healing."

Anne floundered for a long moment, before spinning to face me. "Nick; _you_ must have something to say on this matter. I know how close you and Jenna are, surely you wouldn't her to risk her health in such a way?"

Both her and Max were looking at me expectantly, and I hesitated before looking up to face Anne in the eyes. "Whatever Jenna says; she's the leader."

Max grinned smugly, and I had to hide a grin at her expression; she'd always loved to hear me say that.

"I don't believe this!" Anne shrieked, clearly frustrated, before she slammed the door open and surged out; a flustered-looking Dr Hannings following behind her, calling something about signing the forms to her retreating back. I could see that going well.

There was a long silence in the room, and then Max snorted in laughter, rubbing her ribs immediately afterwards.

Broken ribs sucked.

"I really don't think this is funny." I said, with an amazingly straight face.

For a second, the two of us regarded each other, and then we both burst out laughing.

* * *

Max was obviously in pain.

Anne, clearly still angry at the whole predicament, had no sympathy, and her attempts to move the flock faster than normal didn't go unnoticed. Part of me was getting angrier and angrier, but Max showed no signs of discomfort, and kept the pace despite the fact that I knew that she must be in a serious amount of pain.

I had been tempted on numerous occasions to slip my arm around her waist to help support her, but knew that I'd only aggravate her wound more by doing so. I settled for holding her hand, pretending not to notice her white-knuckled grip on mine.

Slowly, the seven of us piled into the car, and Anne gunned the engine.

She really wasn't happy.

I couldn't help but notice the way that Max winced, and her hand tightened around my own, as we hit every pot hole and bump in the road. The others didn't notice, of course, if there was anything that Max was good at, it was hiding her emotions and showing others what they wanted to see.

I gently pulled her into my side and she curled into me with a smile that was all thanks. Kissing her forehead gently, I leant back and felt her relax a little against me, letting out a deep breath when we hit yet another pot hole.

I was beginning to wonder whether Anne was driving through them deliberately, but she was making apologetic faces in the rear-view mirror now, so I was content to let her off just this once.

Finally, after way too long in the cramped car, and when the kids and Iggy sleeping heavily, Anne announced that we were nearly there. Max was still leaning against me, clearly drowsy although her pain was keeping her awake. She sat up a little straighter as we turned off the road and down a winding driveway; her tired brown eyes meeting my own in surprise.

We'd been expecting a small town house where we'd all have to share rooms; not a country manor, complete with barns and copious amounts of land, and frankly I was a little taken aback. I wasn't the only one, either.

"Whoa," Nudge breathed, her and the kids suddenly awake. I hadn't even noticed them stirring, although I had to agree to her statement.

"This is your house?" The Gasman asked breathily, before relaying a pretty accurate, if not understated, description of the house and surrounding area to Iggy, who nodded appreciatively – gazing out of the window as if he could see what we could.

Anne laughed, sounding a lot more chirpy than when I'd last heard her speak. Clearly the car ride had eased things off a little, and she certainly didn't seem to be hitting as many potholes anymore, confirming my earlier suspicions.

Finally pulling to a stop outside of the house, Anne killed the engine and turned to grin at us all. "You think you'll like it here, then?"

It was like she'd flipped a switch; all of the kids were talking at once, excitedly. I said nothing, and I noted that Max was frowning. I knew she was hating this, and wondered why – what didn't she like about being given an opportunity to heal in a home-like environment?

The six of us followed Anne out of the car, and she announced that we should head inside whilst she retrieved the stuff that her assistant had bought and driven over to the house from the garage. She happily informed us that any room on the top floor was fair game, opened the front door and immediately turned right and disappeared.

The flock hesitated, looking at Max unsurely. For a second, I thought she was going to tell them to turn tail and run, and then she sighed. "Go on then. What are you waiting for?"

They didn't take long, Gazzy directing Iggy as they disappeared around the corner.

"Don't you want to rush up and pick the best room?" I teased Max, remembering her doing that very thing when we'd moved to the E-shaped house; even if she had done so for the both of us and waited for my approval before claiming it.

"Don't you want to stop being a jerk?" She mimicked, forcing a smile to go along with even though I knew she was in serious pain.

"Alright," I moved swiftly and scooped her up, Max making a small noise of surprise.

"What the hell are you doing?"

"You really want to walk up all of those stairs? 'Cause be my guest."

Max hesitated, as if tempted to save her pride and say she'd walk; she reluctantly forced her body to relax and buried her head into my shirt. "Thanks."

I grinned a little, hiding it instantly when she raised her head to look where we were going – taking in the long staircase and the white hallway before shivering in my arms. It was clean; too clean.

I gently sat her on her feet when we reached the top, and she swayed for a brief moment before finding her balance; I would have willingly kept her in my arms longer – it's not like she was weighing me down, after all, and the feel of her body against mine was a good one – but I knew that she wouldn't exactly appreciate that.

All of the doors were open and the hallway tapered a little, allowing us to see into all of the rooms from our position. Six bedrooms, and three bathrooms; Max's face told me that I wasn't the only noticing that there was a bedroom for each of us.

I _really_ hoped that we were just being paranoid.

Max would never let me live it down if I'd marched us all straight into a trap. And it could be dangerous, of course. There was always that.

Nudge and Angel had picked the first two side-by-side bedrooms on the first side, a bathroom separating them, and Iggy and The Gasman had the same layout on the other side – leaving the two bedrooms at the end of the corridor for Max and I. I knew that Max would be happy that the two youngest members of the flock were sandwiched between the four older ones for their own safety, and that it probably would have been mentioned at some stage if the layout had been different.

"Looks like our rooms have been decided for us," She laughed, moving steadily forward despite the fact that her brow was creased with the pain she refused to show. I wanted to tell her to sit down, but knew it'd only cause her to push me further away than usual – I was already skating on thin ice.

Max instinctively took the bedroom on the left, and it took only a matter of seconds to realise it was the same side as her bed at home; oddly, I knew when one of us ended up in the others bed later, because it would happen, she'd be sleeping on the right hand side. Strange.

The bedroom I walked into was large, with a balcony at the far end and wide, sliding glass doors. I couldn't decide whether I considered them cool, or a hazard, but decided to let it slide; there was a large bed on the left-hand wall, with a desk on the wall next to the door, the other wall holding a bookshelf, wardrobe and some doors.

The right-hand wall held the door to the bathroom, currently lying open (as was the one from Max's room, meaning that I could see her through the passageway formed). Three of the walls were a grey colour, and the remaining one was white – meaning that it was plain, but not unbearably so.

I actually almost liked it.

It was nothing like the bedroom back in the E-shaped house, where my half had been plastered with make-do posters printed from the printer, of bands that I'd spent hours getting YouTube videos to work for, and pictures from the cameras that Jeb had tried (and failed) to hide in his desk draw.

Sighing a little to myself, I did a quick sweep of the room to check for possible cameras/audio devices or the likes and found only an old air freshener shoved in the back of a wardrobe. Finally convinced that this was actually alright, I wandered through the bathroom and into Max's room.

The bathroom was a typical black-white-blue style, and I was simultaneously relieved and annoyed to find that it had a shower; on the up side, Max loved showers, on the down side, Max loved showers. I'd never get her out of the thing, I was sure of it.

Max's room was a mirror opposite of mine, but exactly the same, something which I thought was pretty cool. Neutral colours, a balcony overlooking the land and providing the perfect place for escape, and a big, comfy bed. Seemed like heaven to me.

Which was the reason that Max was doing the same camera/audio checks that I'd just done, but better; she'd always surpassed me in that area, and I knew that she'd check my room over later – just in case I'd missed something. She'd do the kids' rooms later, too, just to check that they were safe; she'd already taught them to do the checks herself, but her motto had always been "Rather safe than sorry."

"You checked your room yet?" Max asked, and I found myself raising an eyebrow and grinning as I shook my head at her; she blushed, laughing. "Sorry."

I laughed a little at the embarrassed look on her face. "I'll let it go as long as you promise you're not making plans to kill me in my sleep or anything for agreeing to stay here."

Max mock-frowned, moving to sit on the bed.

"Not sure that I can make that promise." She sighed, shaking her head disappointedly. I rolled my eyes in retaliation, flopping down on the bed next to her. She lay down a little more carefully than me, shifting a little to lay her head on my chest as I kissed her temple gently, linking my hand with hers.

For a while the two of us just lay there in silence, and then I spoke with a frown, "You're not going to be _too_ awful to Anne, are you?"

Max turned her head to glare at me.

* * *

**A/N; Bleh. Its a little early, but I'm waiting for a few more votes on days :) I'd also like to say that whilst I appreciate that five reviews a chapter is a really good number, I'd kind have hoped for a few more. For me? Please?**

**REVIEW!**

**And remember that if you haven't already, you can still vote for the day of the updates!**

**ALSO, this is going to start veering a little further away from the books soon, so ya'll can watch out for that and let me know what you think, alright? I guess you'll just have to trust me a little :).**


	5. Too good to be true

**Chapter Five – Too good to be true.**

Three hours. That was how long I'd been lying in this too-comfy bed, willing for sleep to take me captive and drag me under; no such luck. I'd expected the insomnia, but it was still nothing short of annoying.

"Fang?"

I jumped, startled, and turned to the doorway leading from the bathroom to my room; I'd left it open in the hopes that even if I couldn't share a room with Max (she'd insisted that we try, for one night at least, to act "normal"; since I'd dragged us into this whole situation) hearing her breathing would be enough to coax me to sleep.

No such luck.

Now, however, my night vision picked up Max's unsure form in the entrance to the bathroom. She was wearing the tank top and three-quarter sweatpants combination that Anne's trusty assistant had acquired on an all-night shopping spree the day after we'd agreed to stay here, and was clearly uncomfortable. Her left arm was crossed over her stomach to grip her right arm, the hand of which was playing with the hem of her shirt.

I said nothing, simply offered her a small smile and lifted the covers – scooting back to give her room to slide in to the bed next to me; she headed hesitantly over, kicking her slippers off and sliding into the bed next to me. I wasn't sure where all of this embarrassment was coming from all of a sudden, and had to assume it was something that Anne or someone had said, as I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her closer, wary of her injuries as I did so.

She curled into my chest, snuggling in tightly as I kissed her gently.

"You seem… shy tonight. Is it something to do with what Anne wanted to talk to you about after dinner?"

"Maybe," Max answered with an embarrassed laugh, playing with the collar of my shirt and watching me coyly through her eyelashes. "She said that me and you being together so much wasn't normal, and you were saying how you wanted us all to have a chance at being normal, so…"

I couldn't help it. I laughed, brushing her hair back from her face and kissing her gently again. "I wouldn't ever want to be normal if it meant I couldn't have you, Max."

I woke up warm and comfortable, which was a pleasant change in itself. My arm was resting across Max's hip, the other supporting both of her heads, both of our bodies pressed tightly together. She was breathing lightly, reading to attack and defend in an instant even whilst asleep, and I was relieved to note that where her maroon tank top had ridden up, I could clearly see that she hadn't bled through her bandages.

Her beautiful blonde hair was strewn across the pillow, her tank top hugging her curves down to her waist; it was crazy how _small_ she was when I was really looking. Usually her attitude and defiance made her seem bigger, and only now did I really take into account that she'd stopped growing at around 5'6" – leaving Iggy and I, who had now long surpassed 6'0", towering above her.

White, black and tawny wings were slightly unfurled and held at an angle that looked uncomfortable, but ensured that they were pressed firmly against me – I assumed that it was some subconscious recognition that I was still there.

It also meant I was trapped; there was no way that I could move and not wake Max up, and she really needed her sleep. Not that I was complaining, I was _more_ than comfortable.

Not for the first time, I was tempted to ghost my hand along her side, proving that she was still there. It was strange; when Max had made me watch some film (The Invisible or something?) and the guy, who I now remembered with a small chuckle to be named Nick, had done the very same thing I'd thought he was a weirdo. Now I kind of understood a little better.

Max stirred in my arms; rolling over, wincing, and then snuggling closer despite the pain that it seemed to cause – eyes still closed. I kissed her head, moving my arms slightly to rub between her wings in the hopes of sending her back to sleep. No such luck.

After a long moment, her eyes blinked open, and I was relieved to note that the scary, desperately wild look from the hospital had gone from her eyes.

"I promised the kids we'd explore the farm today," She mumbled into my chest, tucking her head under my chin and letting loose a jaw-breaking yawn. I nodded, letting my head fall back on the pillow even as I could feel myself sinking back into sleep. Max didn't complain, and I felt her breathing deepen.

"Max!" Iggy hissed through the door. "Fang! Anne's on her way, and I don't think she'd be happy if she caught you sharing…"

Well, there goes that plan.

Max and I dragged ourselves upright, and she headed into the bathroom, shutting the door behind her and starting up the shower. Good cover, Max. Good cover.

"Nick?" Anne called through the door. "Are you decent? Can I come in?"

"Sure." I called, flopping back onto the bed.

She came in hesitantly, and I saw her glace in a manner that was supposed to be sneaky at the closed bathroom door.

"Jenna didn't answer her door, so…" Anne trailed off, tugging her shirt down a little.

"You assumed she was in here?" I asked, raising an eyebrow. I heard Max stifle a laugh in the bathroom at the open baiting. "She's in the shower."

"Yes," Anne said, and I could tell that she was trying to keep the terseness out of her voice. "I can hear that."

"Good." I sighed, and rolled over, pulling the duvet back up to cover my wings and head, and finding myself relieved when my still slightly outspread wings didn't tangle in it. I really hadn't thought that too.

"Uh, Nick…" Anne asked, and I peered out from under the duvet, now more annoyed than amused. She was holding up one of Max's slippers, a question on her face.

"She left it in here last night." I groaned, slightly surprised with the ease that the lie fell off my tongue. Max chose that moment to appear from the bathroom; she was wrapped in a towel, long hair twisting into one long, thick strand and slung over her shoulder.

"Is everything alright in here?" She asked, glancing between Anne and myself, playing innocent incredibly well. "Oh, is that my slipper? I thought I must have left them in here after we watched that film last night."

"Oh," Anne said, holding the slippers out for the mutant girl. I didn't miss the way that her eyes quickly analysed the fold of Max's wings over the top of the towel. Max took them, and I saw a small flicker of a grin cross her face before she stepped back, slippers in hand.

"I'd best go and get dressed," She said calmly, but there was a small flare of something in her eyes. "The kids will be up soon."

I understood now; it was a challenge. Anne had tried to put the kids to bed last night, but they'd said that it was Max's job; Anne hadn't been happy, but there wasn't much she could do. Max was now reiterating that - it was the bird part of her telling Anne to back off, and I could see her wings quivering with tension behind her.

There was a pause as the two females met eyes and I allowed myself to grin; Max was going to win. She always did. After a long moment, Anne nodded, breaking contact and heading away.

"Not as strong as she thinks she is, then." Max commented idly, causing a chuckle for me, before she headed into her room – the door clicking shut behind her.

Typical Max.

Heading into the bathroom, I prepared for a day filled with _fun_. Not.

"Whoa, M-Jenna, look at him! He's huge." Nudge ran forwards, towards the stables, Max trailing reluctantly behind her. Angel and The Gasman weren't far behind, Gazzy tugging Iggy along by the hand and me bringing up the rear. Their current object of fascination was a large horse; light tan in colour, with a thick white stripe down his head.

"Do you want to give him a carrot?" A new voice asked, and I whipped around so fast that I very nearly gave myself whiplash, annoyed at myself for letting a human sneak up on me even as I heard Max snicker behind me. Anne opened a large tin box, passing each of the kids a carrot, and quickly retracting the other three when she noticed the lack of interest from Max, Iggy and myself.

The four of us watched as the kids hesitantly feeding the horse; Nudge squealed as the large animal took the carrot from her, and Max laughed a little. It did seem a little ironic that the girl who could kill most humans with a flick of her wrist was scared of a _horse_.

Max started to move, and my eyes tracked her even as my ears stayed trained on the others. She was moving hesitantly towards the back of the stable, where even my eyes could just pick out a few large shapes in the darkness. Anne moved to flick the lights on as Max melted into the darkness, and I was met with the sight of her hesitantly touching the face of a large white stallion.

"Ah! Careful, Jenna, he's not very friendly—" Anne cried, cutting herself off as the stallion pressed his nose into Max's palm and snorted softly. She smiled, moving her hand to gently stroke his face. The animal seemed to relax into her touch, leaning forward to rest his head on her shoulder.

A glance at Anne showed that she was watching in amazement. "He's never approached anyone before. Not willingly."

I grinned a little as Iggy spoke. "Well, Jenna has a certain charm about her… apparently it works on…"

"Amazon."

Iggy snickered. "Right. Apparently her charm works on _Amazon,_ as well."

Max turned her head to glare at us over the animals nose, still rubbing his face softly. Anne was watching with something akin to fascination and amazement.

"That's amazing," Anne muttered. "I've never seen him let anyone pet him before. We adopted him from the local SPCA, and he's scared of everything; normally spooks, and kicks things."

"Well," Iggy laughed. "Jenna is just that cool."

Anne nodded, before checking her watch and starting. "Come on, kids, we'd best get inside – dinner will be here soon."

The kids nodded, practically running to the house; shortly followed by Anne, with Max and I bringing up the back. Max was looking paler than she had this morning, and winced when she moved too fast.

"We'll have dinner, and then put a film on in our room," I told her, wrapping an arm around her shoulder and kissing her head as she leant into me. "Then you can have a rest, and the flock don't even have to know about it, alright?"

"Sounds good." Max mumbled, clearly too tired to fight.

* * *

**IMPORTANT A/N.**

Updates are likely to be slow due to RL problems. Sorry.


	6. Surprise

**Chapter Six - Surprise.**

Two weeks.

Two weeks of waking up when we wanted, large (if not poorly cooked) meals and relaxation. For the first time since we'd left the E-shaped house, we'd gone half a month without being attacked. It was making Max and I paranoid, that was for sure. Why was it that as soon as Anne had come into the picture, the attacks had suddenly stopped?

Surely Ari's death couldn't have set them that far behind?

It seemed unlikely, if not impossible. The bonus about erasers, for the scientists at least, was that there was so many of them - they were dispensable. Completely and utterly replaceable; pawns on the check board that was the bigger picture, the goal of the perfect human race.

Because that's what they were after - they'd told us thousands of times, "You're all just part of the bigger picture. We're going to make the perfect race - a race that could survive an apocalypse." It sounded more like cruelty in the name of nothing short of irrationality. Pipe dreams that were unlikely to ever become reality.

Then again, I'm sure that people had said that about bird-kids, and yet here we are. Our world's just wacky that way.

The kids and Iggy were enjoying the rest, at least, and the four of them seemed to have settled in almost unnaturally fast. Of course, because it was our life, it was right when we started getting used to things that Anne decided to throw us another curveball.

"Kids?" She called from downstairs, the door slamming shut behind her. Apparently she'd just returned from a day's hard work. "Kids? I need to talk to you downstairs, please."

I sighed, looking down at where Max had fallen asleep curled into my side; it had been happening a lot recently, but the logical part of my mind argued that it was because of the healing process, not something else… like her DNA unravelling, or something. Sighing to myself, I gently shook her awake.

"Come on," I muttered, scooping her up and setting her on her feet as she swayed tiredly and yawned. "Anne wants to talk to us all downstairs."

Max nodded, quickly composing herself and pulling on her "leader face". The two of us headed downstairs, beating the others there by a matter of seconds. Iggy and The Gasman had been playing with the resident farm dog, Tilly, and Angel and Nudge had clearly been… playing hairdressers, or trying to tangle their hair beyond saving. Either way, both had their hair tied back in an impressively complex manner.

Anne was in the kitchen, and quickly motioned for us to all to take a seat; with her at the head of the island, we were a chair short, and after a few moments of an under-the-breath argument (which I won) Max took the sixth chair and I moved to stand behind her, gently rubbing her shoulders.

"Alright, I have some exciting news for you all," The kids and Iggy were immediately mumbling between themselves, but Max and I just settled for exchanging a sceptical look. Anne grinned a little, before continuing. "My supervisor and I have been talking and we've decided that you're all… going to school!"

She clapped her hands together, grinning widely, only to be met by complete and utter silence. Max tensed under my hands, as they tightened on her shoulders.

"Are you joking?" Iggy groaned.

Anne frowned. "No, I'm not joking. I thought you'd be excited; it's a new experience – something normal for once."

"There's a reason that we don't normally indulge in "normal" activities," Max answered easily, despite her obvious discomfort. "Mutants and normal things generally end in disaster."

"Have you ever even _tried_?" Anne asked exasperated, before her face hardened and her frown straightened out. "Anyway, it doesn't matter. You're already signed up."

Max stiffened further. "Not necessarily. Let's put it to a vote."

She turned to the Flock, and I knew that whatever the outcome, at least this way she knew that if we were going, it was because the kids wanted us to. "It's completely up to you guys, no pressure. From any of us. Just raise your hand if you want to go,"

There was a long pause, and then Angel meekly raised her hand. Already I could sense what was about to happen, and by her reaction beneath my hands, apparently so could Max. Nudge followed close behind her, and The Gasman at the same time of Anne.

Four against three.

Damn.

Max sighed, but nodded. "Alright then. We're going to school."

Iggy growled something under his breath that didn't sound particularly pleasant, and Max grimaced despite her best efforts to hide it.

This whole thing was just getting worse and worse.

* * *

"School's going to suck." Max complained quietly. The others had retired a while ago, leaving just Max and I awake, talking quietly on my bed. She was lying on her back, talking to the ceiling, whilst I was lying on my front, arms wrapped around a pillow, face turned to the side to help with the whole breathing thing. I've heard that it's fairly important.

"Now there's an understatement and a half. I've seen those _MTV_ music videos – they're going to eat us alive." I joked. Max shook her head, but she was grinning nonetheless.

"I am a little glad, though," Max confessed quietly, turning her head to the side to face me as I raised my eyebrow. "For the kids, I mean. Me, you and Iggy, well… I think we all know that it's too late for us. But not for them. At least this way they have a _chance_ of a normal life – after all, there's no guarantees that we'll find their parents, and even if we do, they parents might not _want_ them."

She sighed, before wincing and pressing her hand to her side. Despite our mutant healing rates, she still wasn't even nearly fully healed – if she'd have been human, she'd have been dead and gone before we'd even made it to the hospital. Maybe that was why her healing was so slow? Because she'd been so close to death?

It was a scary thought.

"Or maybe they won't want their parents," I replied quietly. "Think about it, Max. Even if their parents do take them in, even if they _do_ accept them, they're never going to understand them. Never going to understand that flying is a part of their nature, that we're a family in our own right, that we're never going to be able to take swimming lessons, or go to the beach for a family day in the sea. Maybe we're just too different."

"Don't say that," Max snapped. "We're going to find the kids' parents, and they're going to be able to live normal lives—"

She cut herself off as her voice faltered a little, turning her head away, and I was left with the feeling that this wasn't just about the kids.

"You're not being selfish, you know." I said gently, rolling onto my side and stroking some hair away from her face. She turned to face me, no longer smiling.

"Then why does it feel like it?" She whispered, brown eyes pleading with me for an answer that I didn't have. "Why does it feel like if I wasn't being selfish, I'd have found them someplace to live already? I'd have found their parents, or… something?"

"Because you're a self-depreciating idiot?" I laughed, and then, seriously. "There's no way you could have found them so fast, it would be impossible even if you were trying harder than humanly possible."

"How do you know?" Max asked, but her eyes were a little less hopeless now.

"Because I know everything," I chuckled, kissing her gently. "As I keep reminding you."

* * *

"This is going to be almost as awful as school," Iggy remarked dryly, sightless eyes staring forwards at the newest form of torture. The building was large, and strangely modern – with big glass windows and brightly-coloured signs. "Do we really have to go in there?"

"Yes," Anne sighed, much to Max's apparent amusement. "Look, we just have to go in, get your school stuff and then we can go home again, okay? Just… try and act normal."

"Right." Max groaned, and then muttered under her breath, "But if you don't trust us to act normal in a freaking _mall_, why are you sending us to school, you idiot?"

I stifled a snigger, and Iggy coughed loudly to hide his amusement. Nudge chose to ignore the comment, instead opening the car door and climbing out – closely followed by an equally excited Angel, and a slightly more reluctant Gasman.

"We're gonna have hell trying to keep tabs on the girls, aren't we?" I sighed, shaking my head as I followed Max out of the car. She nodded, laughing as she took in the sight of the two of them jumping excitedly and discussing all different things that they'd seen on the TV.

"Did you know," Nudge babbled excitedly into Iggy's ear, gripping his arm tightly. "Every mall has its own branch of the police? They call them mall cops, how cool is that!"

Iggy shot me a pleading look over Nudge's head, but I slung my arm over Max's shoulders and pretended not to notice. The whole thing was amusing me far too much for me to try and stop it.

"Right; follow me." Anne muttered, squaring her shoulders and leading the way into the large mall. I led Max forward, Angel hanging back a few steps to grab a hold of her hand – the three of us having to squeeze together to laughingly fit through the door.

The laughter stopped almost immediately.

The only other time that we'd really been to a mall was when Max and I had gone to the one in New York, and I certainly hadn't expected this small-town Virginia mall to be busier. I guess, in some ways, it made sense; back in New York there was hundreds of choices of what to do. From what I'd seen of Virginia so far, there was the choice of a few ice cream parlors, a small movie theatre and the mall.

Apparently the mall was the best of the three choices.

Personally, I'd go for the ice cream parlors… but that might just be my bottomless-bird-kid-stomach speaking for me.

"This whole plan just got ten times worse," Max muttered under her breath, my arm – previously relaxed – removed itself from her shoulders to grab her hand, and I saw Max's own tighten around Angel's.

"Ariel?" Anne asked, and I snickered as she turned with her hand held out, only to find that once again, Max had managed to beat her to the punch, and didn't look in the least bit sorry for it. Angel batted her eyelashes innocently, but moved slightly closer to the Max nonetheless – apparently Max's dislike of Anne mothering the flock was shared by the flock themselves, something which seemed to reassure our fearless leader a little.

"Okay," Anne said, dropping her hand to her side when The Gasman pretended not to notice it, and sped up a little to walk next to his partner-in-crime. I was slightly dubious of the two of them, they'd been together for less than a month and already we'd borne witness to more than our fair share of pranks.

Admittedly, I wasn't all to annoyed when they were pulled on Anne. Generally that just amused me.

"The shop's just up here…" She turned a sharp corner with a practiced ease that told me that she'd spent more time here than I'd have expected an FBI agent to have. Not that I really knew what to expect from an FBI agent, but whatever.

Thankfully, the shop was large and there was only a few people inside – clearly this wasn't the "cool" shop to hang in. Although, considering it only sold stationary and school supplies, I could kind of understand why.

Anne handed us each a list of things that we needed to get, before trying – and failing – to organise us into groups. After a few moments of intense frustration on her behalf, she simply walked off, huffing angrily, and the six of us watched her go.

"You think she thought that this would be so much easier than it actually is?" Iggy asked, a grin on his face as his sightless eyes stared just off to the left of where Anne had wandered off.

"Definitely." Max laughed, before glancing down at her list and sighing. "Alas, whilst we're here, we might as well do what we're supposed to be doing… for once."

"Right," Iggy sighed. "We're going to need books for the whole school thing. On the plus side, I finally learnt how to spell "school." H-E-L-L."

The Gasman frowned.

"Uh, Iggy?" He started, but the older mutant cut him off with laugher, grabbing his shoulder and whispering something into his ear as the two of them disappeared around the corner.

"Come on guys," Max sighed, rubbing her forehead. "If we leave the two of the alone for more than five minutes and they might blow up the shop."

Unfortunately, it was a valid point, and the four of us trailed after our two resident mischief-makers.

Two binders, six notepads (each) six sets of pens and six schoolbags later and we were successfully… half way through the list. Great. Even Angel and Nudge's enthusiasm was lessening with each passing moment, which was a miracle in itself. Iggy and The Gasman had gotten to the stage where they were muttering between themselves – and Max was looking a little worse for wear.

It didn't seem so much that her side was hurting that… her head was.

"Max? Maybe we should just give it up as a bad job well done—" I muttered, watching as she rubbed her temple for what seemed to be the hundredth time. She closed her eyes, sighing a little, but shook her head.

"No, I'm fine. Honestly." She said, offering me a fake smile that I saw straight through. I raised an eyebrow in response. "Seriously, I'm just feeling a little… warm."

Well, that hadn't been the admission that I was expecting.

"Warm?" I asked curiously, pressing the back of my hand against her skin, only to yank it back seconds later.

The skin there was red.

"Max, that's not _warm!"_ I hissed, "That's freaking _burning_. That's not normal… in any sense of the word. Not even for us."

Max frowned, "But it's not like I feel ill or anything, I swear. I just feel hot and have a headache, that's all."

Most of me didn't believe her, but I'd always been able to tell when she was lying before, and my Max-O-meter wasn't dinging today, meaning that – oddly – she was almost definitely telling the truth. But that didn't change the fact that a hugely hot temperature and a headache probably weren't good signs after an injury like the one she'd received, so I'd be keeping an eye on her.

I was fairly sure that Jeb had mentioned both of them as symptoms of septicaemia, but I may have just been being paranoid.

Then again, the worst choice always seemed to be the right one in our lives.


	7. High School Blues

**Chapter Seven – High School Blues.**

Waking up at six in the morning to prepare for a day that I'd been dreading was an experience that I would be unwilling to repeat in the future.

The shower was already running by the time I managed to turn the alarm off (without breaking it, which I'd kind of been expecting) and drag myself out of bed, which meant that Max had somehow managed to extract herself from my grip earlier this morning without waking me, replacing her lean figure with a pillow.

Clever mutant bird-girl.

"Nick?" Anne called through the door, knocking before poking her head around the side. "I brought your uniform for you."

I blinked, and then blinked again.

"What?" I asked dumbly, rubbing my head as if I'd heard her wrong. Unfortunately, I hadn't.

"Your uniform," Anne repeated, placing the pile of clothes on the desk before heading back out into the hallway. Hesitantly, I lifted the items off the pile one by one. The shirt was a simple white number (which was an issue in itself. White? _Really?_) but thankfully the trousers, jumper and blazer (seriously, who wears blazers anymore?) were all black, though the jumper and blazer both bore the same red-and-gold insignia.

The outfit was completed by a red and gold tie, which could have been better, a pair of posh black shoes – which I planned on replacing with my combat boots – and a packet of black socks. Not too bad, although I still wasn't looking forward to wearing it.

I doubted that Anne was planning on letting us cut wing-holes into the back of it, so I made a mental note to wear some sort of shirt underneath, in case I needed to take to the skies at some stage, and didn't really fancy doing it half-naked. I really hoped it wasn't necessary, but you could never be too sure.

Max turned the shower off at the same time as I finished my assessment of the uniform, and headed into her room – wrapped in a towel and shutting the door behind her, after sending a good-morning smile my way. I headed into the bathroom, a little cheerier for seeing Max acting fairly chipper, only to hear a suppressed shriek from her room a matter of seconds later.

I was in her room before I had time to process the fact that I was moving, nevermind shirtless, expecting to be met by a group of blood-thirsty erasers, and met instead by Max gazing horrified at a white, black, grey and red plaid skirt. I couldn't help it, I laughed, right as Anne burst into the room – her eyes wide in what I assumed to be fear.

"Is everything alright? Why did you scream—what's wrong? Don't you like the skirt?" Anne smoothed her hair down, and once again I noticed the way that her eyes were instantly drawn to the way that Max's wings were folded over the back of her towel, and then to the way that my own folded neatly into my spine.

"I'm not wearing this." Max said stiffly, and Anne frowned.

"Yes, Jenna, you _are._ You held a vote about going to school remember? And going to this school requires wearing the uniform, which happens to include this skirt."

"Isn't there some form of alternative? Trousers, or _something?_" Max asked, clearly distressed by the thought of wearing the skirt.

"No." Anne snapped. "Now stop being a drama queen and put the skirt on, or we're going to be late." She headed out of the room, slamming the door behind her as I felt anger bubble up inside of me at the woman's attitude. I wasn't sure what her problem with Max was, but she'd better get over it soon.

Max sighed, slumping in on herself a little. "This is going to suck."

I didn't doubt it.

* * *

Breakfast was… chaotic. Anne had tried to cook toast, and ended up setting the fire alarm off, so Iggy decided to make pancakes for everyone, which was when Max emerged, followed by the girls who had announced moments before that they were going to check that she was "glam enough for school."

Whatever that means.

When she emerged, I have to admit, I very nearly choked on my pancakes. Never before had I seen Max wearing a skirt; the blouse and cardigan combination accentuated her slim figure, curvy in all of the right places, whilst managing to completely hide her wings, and the (little) plaid skirt emphasised her long legs. White socks were worn up to her knees, and the whole look was completed by a pair of… combat boots?

I couldn't help it, I grinned. It looked like once again Max and I had been thinking the same thing; sometimes I could have sworn that we were the mind readers, instead of little Angel.

The girls had also managed to somehow convince her that make-up would make her stand out less (although I was sure that Anne must have only taught Nudge to apply it sometime last week) and I had to admit that it worked well. Her brown eyes stood out more against dark-rimmed eyes, without making her look like a panda, which was honestly what I'd been expecting. Apparently, I'd underestimated Nudge's ability to learn when it came to all things fashion related.

Anne still sighed as she laid eyes on her, shaking her head, although she didn't seem to have twigged that Max wasn't wearing the shoes that she'd been provided. "The school aren't going to be happy about your hair, Jenna. What possessed you to put _pink_ and _blue_ in it?"

Her voice was filled with far more disdain that was necessary, and I clearly wasn't the only one to notice. Pretty much everyone in the room, other than the farm dog Tilly, froze.

"Well," Max began, and Iggy winced in preparation for what was to come. "I figured that the colors in my hair would prevent me from looking… well, anything like you."

Anne frowned, and I figured that if humans could growl, she would have. "Very funny." She snapped instead, but it was clear that Max was starting to get to her more than ever... she was good at that.

I should have been annoyed that Max couldn't just stop herself from rising to the bait, but it wasn't in my nature – I actually thought it was quite funny, if I was honest.

Max grinned a little to herself, slipping into her seat and giving me a peck on the cheek when Anne turned her back on the pair of us. She quickly tucked into her pancakes, demolishing them easily (and fast) enough, and was just in time for Anne to announce that it was time to go.

Sighing, I grabbed my backpack from the kitchen and swung it over my shoulder, watching as Max grabbed hers with a sigh and rubbed her forehead.

"You alright?" I asked her, rubbing her back and kissing her temple as he rested against me.

"I'll be fine," She grinned, putting a brave face on despite the fact that something was obviously wrong. Her brow was creased, and her breathing was a lot lighter than normal – as if she was in pain.

"Max…" I said in my '_don't lie to me because I can see straight through it'_ voice.

She frowned. "It's just a headache, Fang, chill."

I sighed, wrapping an arm around her as the two of us headed towards the car. Max had clearly disproven my theory that a normal life would be relaxing – something good for us, to help us chill for a while. All it seemed to have done so far was cause unnecessary stress, and I had no hopes that was going to change any time in the future.

"We've barely left the house," Max muttered to me under her breath, watching as Anne fussed around the kids, trying to get them into the car a little faster. "and Anne's already moaning at us."

"Actually," I laughed. "That's what she's moaning _about_."

"Oh," Max snickered. "Right, which reminds me. This whole school thing, do you think that they're actually expecting us to… y'know, _go_ to the classes?"

I shot her a look, noting the humour in her eyes although her face was completely deadpan.

"I think that they might."

* * *

"Alright, so I completely failed those tests," Max groaned, slumping into a seat next to me. I offered her a small half-smile, but inwardly I was thinking the same thing. Iggy muttered something under his breath that made her smile a little, before she picked up her fork and poked the cafeteria food around the plate.

The three of us, and Nudge, had been allowed the use of the cafeteria twenty minutes before the rest of the school since we'd finished the tests early. Although that, I was sure, was only because we'd missed most of the questions out.

"You know," Nudge said, looking at her plate in disgust. "I thought after dumpster diving _nothing_ would look unappealing… cafeteria food has just changed my mind on that."

Max laughed a little, shaking her head, but bravely taking a bite out of what was supposed to be… chicken? Turkey? The jury was still out on that one.

"It's actually not as bad as it looks," She offered, taking another bite. No one moved.

Rolling my eyes, I dug my fork in and prepared myself for a disgusting taste, only to discover that she hadn't been lying; it didn't taste as bad as it looked, which was a relief in itself. Hesitantly, the others raised their forks to their mouths, their faces shocked as they realised that we'd been telling the truth – within moments they were shovelling it in like there was no tomorrow.

Which, for all we knew, could be completely the case.

"So we've got the fitness tests and stuff after lunch?" Max asked conversationally, directing her words at me as Iggy and Nudge began to talk quietly.

"Yeah; an afternoon of sports. Should be interesting… I'm guessing we're gonna have to back off a lot." I offered, moving on to my jell-o.

Max sighed. "I'm almost tempted to work as hard as I can… show Anne what a bad idea this was."

"I can see that going well," I snorted, as Max pushed the remaining jell-o in her pot towards me. I raised an eyebrow at her sudden lack of appetite, but she refused to meet my gaze, so I kissed her temple and chalked it up to nerves. Not that she had anything to be nervous about, of course.

"Come on," She sighed, grabbing her back and pulling herself away from the table… being greeted by three raised eyebrows (one from each flock member present). "Do you really want to be here when all of the school kids are released for lunch? Because it's not on my list of the top ten things to do today, thank you very much."

Iggy and Nudge quickly agreed, shovelling the last of their food into their mouths and grabbing their bags as the three of us followed Max out of the canteen. Soon enough we found a nice, secluded spot under a tree; it looked deserted enough, and was well out of the way of the tirade of kids pushing their ways to the food hall.

It was the definition of chaotic for the first five or ten minutes, and then people began to settled, and my claustrophobia settled a little. It was something that I knew Max and Iggy suffered from, although Nudge seemed blissfully content in the large crowds of the school, despite the fact that she'd spent a large portion of _her_ life in a cage, too.

"Tiffany!" Someone called, and Nudge blinked, before turning and quickly locating a girl that looked about her age; she smiled, waving and the girl beckoned for her to join them.

"Its Rebecca," Nudge said. "She gave me a tour earlier, when I finished the maths test. Can I go sit with her, Max, please?"

Max blinked, apparently not expecting the young girl to ask for permission, before laughing a little. "Of course you can, Nudge. Go on… get out of here."

The young girl squealed happily, leaning over to wrap Max in a tight hug as she bounded towards the other girl – barely remembering her backpack as she went. Max watched her go with a small, amused smile on her face, as Iggy and I simply looked at her.

"That was… weird." She said eventually, leaning back against both me and the tree. I kissed her temple, tightening my around her instinctively as I did a 360. Plenty of people seemed to be staring, but none of them seemed to be eraser material, so I decided to let it slide.

"You'd think that they'd never seen a new kid before." Max said sceptically, raising an eyebrow as she glanced around – apparently noticing the same thing that I had.

"Hey," A new voice said, and I glanced up, coming face-to-face with a group of seven people. "You're the new kids, right?"

The girl who'd asked us was smiling, her hand clasped in the hand of one of the other guys – all black hair and green eyes.

"I'm JJ," She continued. "And this is Mike, Tess, Sam, Katie (another couple) Rose and Luke (who weren't a couple, but were standing so close that I had an inkling that they wanted to be). You're under our tree."

Max blinked, but I found a small grin spreading across my face as she smiled, eventually saying, "There's plenty of room – Jeff, move your butt over – there, see?"

Iggy grinned a little as one of the single girls, Tess, sat hesitantly next to her and the others followed suit. Sending me a cocky look, he turned back to her and offered a hand in her general direction.

"I'm Jeff; sixteen, and blind. That's Jenna and Nick."

Sixteen? I blinked, and then realised that it was the age that Anne had put on the papers – clearly not knowing our real ages. Tess smiled, clearly surprised by the blunt introduction and grinned, shaking his hand and repeating his name.

"It's nice to meet you," Max smiled, although she shifted uncomfortably next to me, a little further into my side. Meeting people had never been her thing, which considering the lack of non-evil people to meet at The School, seemed perfectly reasonable to me.

"You too," Sam smiled. "We don't get new kids very often."

"I think they could have guessed that, Sam," Katie laughed, nudging her boyfriend in the side. I couldn't help but frown inwardly a little as I looked at her – from the back, I imagined that it would be more than possible to mistake her for Max, although they had completely different faces – not just in the fact that Katie had green eyes, and Max had brown.

It was a little too strange for my liking.


	8. Human Things

**Chapter Eight – Human Things.**

"Do you think we're ever going to crack this?" Nudge sighed, waving her pages in the air, and nearly losing half on them in the process – tightening her hand around the bundle just in time. Fang dropped his own blue highlighter, slouching a little in his desk seat.

Iggy and The Gasman were off making bombs or something – which Max figured that she could just confiscate later – and Angel had fallen asleep watching some princess film in her room, so the three of them had set out trying to crack the codes, and had so far been completely unsuccessful.

"Think positive," Max said quietly, still staring at the page even though her eyes were so tired that the letters and numbers were beginning to swim along the page.

"My brain's fried, and I still have a page of maths homework to fail. Mind if I quit?" Nudge sighed after a few more moments.

"It's alright," Max groaned, flopping backwards on the bed and letting the orange marker fall out of her hand, resting the papers on her flat stomach as she ignored the buzzing that took place in her head whenever she tried to ignore the voice. "I'm thinking coffee break."

Nudge nodded, and dumped her stuff in an unorganised heap on her leader's desk before heading out, as Fang stood from the chair and sat next to Max on the bed; moving the papers and highlighter to the desk, next to his own. He placed one arm on the other side of her, supporting his weight as the other came up to stroke the hair from her face.

Max thought that, in that moment, she'd never loved him more.

"I'm thinking we give up for today. I know you've got a headache, and your eyes are bloodshot, so why don't we do something a little different?"

"Different?" She asked with a small smile, sliding up so that she was resting on her elbows, eyebrow raised; perking up at the thought. He grinned, leaning over to kiss her. The kiss was hungrier than usual, and her hands wound into his hair, causing the two of them to fall back on the bed.

Finally, they broke apart, and Max couldn't help but lean in for another kiss. Fang chuckled, but pulled away regretfully.

"So what was your master plan?" She asked, running a hand lightly over his wings, causing him to shiver.

"I was thinking horse riding. They say it's good to learn new skills, and I reckon Amazon might even let you ride him." He paused, before grinning and leaning down to kiss me again. "But I'm now liking your idea even better—"

"Nope," Max laughed, pushing him up and rolling away from him (resisting a wince when her side twanged painfully). "You're right. We need to learn new skills."

Fang groaned, but he was grinning as she dragged him up by the hand that he held out, leading him downstairs. Anne had told them where the horse tack (what kind of stupid name is that?) was, although Max figured that the elder woman had assumed that they had already knew how to ride when she had, so it was a simple matter of getting the horses ready and heading out into the fields.

They'd only been in the saddle for a few minutes before one of the horses started playing up. And it wasn't Amazon. Fang looked at his girlfriend a little nervously as his horse, Melody, started going sideways instead of forwards.

"Tighten your heels on her flanks," Max instructed easily, and Fang did as she told him – both of them equally as surprised when her advice worked and the mare began to do as she was supposed to.

"How did you know that?" Fang chuckled as Amazon and Max levelled up with him.

"Apparently I watch too much TV," Max grinned.

* * *

"Where have you two been?" Nudge asked curiously, glancing up from her homework as the two of us spilled into the kitchen, our clothes and faces streaked with mud and our hands clasped tightly together.

"Horse riding." Max replied with a smile as I headed over to the fridge and took out two sodas, throwing one to her. She caught it with ease, jumping up onto the counter and tying her hair back into a quick ponytail before picking it back up and taking a long drink as I hopped up next to her.

Anne appeared from the front of the house, pausing at the door to take in the sight of Max and I. For a second, she looked like she was going to say something, and then she just shook her head and moved to the sink.

Apparently she was finally learning that she had to pick her battles.

"Max!" Angel squealed, tearing into the room and grabbing her around the legs in excitement, her brother seconds behind her, accompanied by Tilly the farm dog. "We taught Tilly a trick!"

"What is it, Angel? Can you show me?" Max asked, laughing a little at the young girl's excitement as she untangled herself from her legs, nodding brightly.

"Tilly," She said, gaining the dogs attention, before tapping on the table. "Up!"

The dog took two long strides, and then leapt onto the table with impressive accuracy, skidding on the slippy surface and knocking a vase of plants onto the floor.

"Oops." I muttered under my breath as Anne spun around seconds too late to save her vase. There was a long, awaked silence, before Max apparently decided that it was necessary to push Anne a little further. What can I say? The girl has a talent.

"Hmm… I give it seven out of ten; just because she didn't quite stick the landing. Keep practicing, though!"

I sent her a look that was part amusement at her comment and part concern about the way that Anne was going to react.

"Jenna," Anne said tersely. "Go to your room."

Angel and The Gasman froze, glancing nervously between the two females. Their short time with us had been enough to teach them that no-one undermines Max and gets away with it.

"I think I'd rather stay down here." Max answered easily, leaning back and commenting idly. "Hey, Nick, didn't you say that there was a good show on TV tonight—"

"Jenna, I'm serious."

I bit back a grin. Sure, when I'd first come here I'd tried to make Max get along with Anne, but that was clearly never going to happen, and I understood why. It was clear from our stay here that Anne was going to make any effort with her. So why should she make the effort?

"So was I." Max answered coolly, hopping down from the bench. "Although I'm not much liking the TV idea anymore, wanna go for a fly?"

I shrugged. "Sure."

I hopped down next to her, the two of us calmly walking out as Anne began slamming pots around. It was clear that it was for dramatic effect; Anne had quickly proven herself untrustworthy as the chef around here, so Iggy had been cooking the evening meals since mid-way through the second week.

"I do actually want to go for a fly." Max said, slipping her hand into my own when she deemed that she was far enough away from Anne. "But I'm thinking that we could all go. A flock flight."

It sounded great to me.

* * *

"Heads up!" The Gasman, and I moved out of the way a split second before he spiralled through the air that I'd just been occupied. It was a frustratingly close call, but the eight-year-olds cackle had the anger dissipating in my chest.

Which quickly reappeared, when he repeated the process.

Max snickered a little next to me, her eyes firmly on Angel and Nudge as the two of them play fought; whistling once for every acceptable move, and twice for those that didn't count. I knew she'd be keeping score in her head, and the two girls were fairly evenly matched, since what Angel lacked in strength and stamina, she made up for with those creepy mind powers of hers.

Emphasis on the creepy.

Angel shot me a glower, a whistle signalling that doing so had cost her a point.

Iggy was the one who decided that it would be funny to drop on me again with only a split second's notice, and quickly regretted it when I moved over to innocently clip him around the back of his head with my wing. Of course, Max heard the thud and turned to face us, frowning.

"What just happened?" She asked mildly, and I turned to Iggy, curious as to whether he'd lie to her face or drop us both in it. Thankfully, he had a backbone, even if it did make him stupid.

"I'm blind, I make mistakes sometimes. That includes flying under the wings of unobservant bird kids and getting smacked around the back of the head." He offered with a pseudo-embarrassed frown.

We were all good liars; we had to be. Unfortunately for Iggy, I often thought that there was a chance that Max's lie-detection skills were some sort of power. That would be pretty cool, right?

"Liar." She said, calling him out easily enough. There was a long moment where I could practically see the gears turning in her head, and then The Gasman dive-bombed Angel and gave her the answer. You've gotta love the timing of an eight-year-old.

"You're as bad as the kids." She said, eyes narrowing into a glare even as her mouth fought back a smile. "Can't take you anywhere."

"You can take me places, Max," Angel said, her young face looking a little offended.

"Yeah," The Gassy frowned. "Me too. You can take me to the zoo, the park, and maybe – if we have enough time, you can take me to Africa—"

"That's not what I meant, guys." Max groaned, but she was grinning again.

"Oh," Gassy answered, still frowning. There was a long second, and then he brightened up. "Well, can we still go to Africa?"

Nudge piped up this time. "Yeah, Max! Can we go to Africa? Oh can we _please_ go to Africa? It'd be hot there! Wait… it is hot in Africa, right? And that's where they have zebras, and lions, and giraffes, and hyenas—"

Iggy clapped a hand over her mouth.

"We get it, Nudge." He groaned. "There are loads of animals in Africa… which does sound pretty cool, by the way."

Max shook her head, sighing exasperatedly. "We're not going to Africa."

She was laughing, but she didn't look like her heart was in it. In fact, she looked almost… distracted. Maybe her side was playing up? I wasn't sure, but her face was flushed and she seemed a little jittery, but she'd seemed fine earlier. Then again, this was the first long flight since the incident.

"Max?" I asked unsurely as she began heading forwards again, flying up next to her so that the kids didn't hear. "You alright? You look a little off."

"Yeah," She muttered back, offering me a small half-smile that seemed genuine enough. "I just keep getting these hot flashes and headaches. It's weird."

I frowned. Years at the school had taught me that hot flushes and headaches could be a symptom of loads of serious diseases, such as septicaemia, blood cancer and leukaemia. Logically, I also knew that it could just be stress, or some flu type thing, but we never got sick.

And when we did, it was usually _very_ bad.

"Maybe we should head back," I said gently, looking her over. Her wings were a little shaky, but she didn't seem too bad; it just seemed wide to nip whatever this was in the bud and get her checked over.

"No!" She argued. "They're enjoying themselves, and besides, it'll pass soon enough. It always does."

There was a split second, and then I turned to argue about when this had happened before, but she hunched her shoulders and suddenly disappeared before my very eyes. For a second, I thought she had fallen, and then I noticed a streak of colour in the air before me.

Max, flying at about 300mph. Easy.

"Whoa." Nudge breathed out, watching as Max looped around us at the incredibly fast pace, before pulling to a stop next to me again.

"What was that?" I asked stupidly, blinking like an idiot.

"I don't know." She said with a shrug, grinning like a fool. "Some kind of power? It could be anything… but it helped me feel better."

I blinked again, and then shrugged, nodding a little. "Maybe what you were feeling was just pent up energy or something." I said, as if it was the most natural thing in the world to discuss your girlfriend suddenly possessing the ability to fly at unnatural speeds.

Not that there's anything particularly natural about a flying kid to begin with, but there you go.

"You know," Max said eventually. "I'm a little disappointed."

"How?" Iggy asked, apparently completely flabbergasted by the idea.

"Well, we'd almost gone a whole week doing human things." She said, but the others didn't seem impressed.

"Like flying?" Iggy quipped.

"And eating four times as much as everyone else." Nudge carried on.

Max groaned, holding her hands up in the air, but laughing again.

"Alright! No human things, just… fun stuff. Easy stuff."

I understood that.

* * *

**A/N:** The drama starts in the next chapter, don't worry, and the action will return soon after that... I promise it won't be just Max and Fang moping around all of the time!


	9. Teenage Drama, Part One

**Chapter 9 – Teenage drama; Part One.**

"What's the capital of Spain?" Max quizzed, wriggling to make herself more comfortable against my chest as Tess scrambled for the right answer.

"Madrid?" Tess answered unsurely after a few seconds. Max nodded happily, before searching through the list for a harder one.

"Kazakhstan?"

"Astana." Tess replied without a seconds hesitation, and Max blinked.

"That was supposed to be a hard one!" She laughed.

"My grandfather grew up there," Tess giggled, and I fought back a smile at the happy expression on Max's face. Despite everything that she'd said, making human friends had done her the world of good. The bags under her eyes were slowly dissapearing, and she didn't seem as tense as before... although that really wasn't saying much. I knew for a fact that she was still paranoid that erasers were going to jump out, or that Anne would suddenly reveal herself to be a whitecoat.

Still, despite it all, she was relaxing, and I couldn't remember the last time that she'd done _that_.

Unfortunately, the bell interrupted the human-hybrid bonding session, startling Max, who blushed and handed the revision sheet back to Tess. She groaned, stuffing the sheet into her backpack, and closing her eyes as she murmured the answers to herself, blindly making her way forward.

Luke chuckled, rolling his eyes at me as he put one hand on Tess' shoulder to guide her forwards, and one on Rosalyna's shoulder… just because he wanted to, I guess. Tess blinked her eyes open a second later as the five of us split ways with the remaining humans to head into the main building. I didn't miss JJ and Mike muttering conspiritorially under their breath as they dissapeared, and raised an eyebrow a little, but let it slide. Surely their pranks couldn't be as bad as Iggy and The Gasman's?

"I'm gonna die," Tess groaned we neared her history classroom, and Max frowned, her motherly instincts kicking in. She reached her hand out and squeezed Tess' shoulder gently.

"Don't worry about it," She said convincingly. "My dad used to be a psychiatrist, and he told me about a study that they did. Apparently people do 30% better on tests if they believe they will."

I raised an eyebrow at her, but she glared at me until Tess and Luke – who had consistently told us that he wasn't bothered by the test, although I more thought that it was because he wanted us all to help Tess – were out of sight, before I finally allowed a smile and she sniggered a little.

"Alright, I made it up."

I'd expected as much, and rolled my eyes as the four of us continued to our English Lit classroom. As usual, the other students had left a group of four tables free for us, and I noted thankfully that Iggy was already there. He'd told us earlier that he was going to be spending his break talking to our Maths teacher, and I'd hoped that the two of them would have come kind of conclusion.

His forced smile told me that they probably hadn't.

"How'd it go?" Max asked sympathetically, sliding her chair out so that she could sit sideways and appraise the blind mutant. Sam slid in next to him, deliberately brushing his side so that he could gauge his whereabouts – he'd sure picked things up fast.

Iggy shrugged, but I didn't miss the relief on his face when Mrs Macintyre started her lecture on _King Lear_.

Who'd have thought that a human-avian hybrid would one day learn Shakespeare? Not me, that was for sure. And now, don't get me wrong, but he was a strangely good author – I mean, not many people in his time would write about a King giving away all of his land to his two evil daughters and pushing his good one away, and then becoming insane and running around in the nude.

Pretty damn cool, for an old guy.

I scribbled a few notes down, and it was only a matter of seconds before a note landed on top of my paper. Grinning a little, I unfolded it and came face-to-face with Max's handwriting.

_'Is it wrong that I find this oddly hilarious? I mean, the man's abusing a stool, for crying out loud.'_

I snickered a little, scribbling a reply down and tossing it back, giving Max a couple of seconds to slip it under the table before the teacher passed her desk. Mrs Macintyre gave her a suspicious look, but Max's page of notes from her lecture were immaculate – far more than most of the people in the class had done.

Hah, and Max wins again.

She blinked innocently, offering the teacher a very convincing confused smile.

That's my girl.

Since there was no evidence that anything "naughty" had taken place, Mrs Macintyre was forced to move on, and Sam, Max and Iggy dissolved into near-silent laughter almost immediately after she'd moved on.

The rest of the lesson was spent pretty much the same: passing notes and acting innocent. Who knew that humans had it so easy?

Finally, the bell rang and Max made an escape to the bathrooms, whilst Iggy and I walked towards the History classroom.

"It's weird," Iggy muttered to me. "We're almost fitting in here, and so far there's been nothing of interest that's happened… except you gaining a stalker."

The second part was latched on when I saw a familiar flash of red hair up ahead, and I resisted the urge to groan (although I had no idea how Iggy had known that Lissa was around). The teenage girl had, at first, seemed like a genuinely friendly girl – despite the others' warnings that she would set her sights on a guy and do anything to get a hold of him, girlfriend or no. Turns out they'd been right and I'd been wrong. Point one for the humans.

"I'm not the only one," I reminded him tersely. "That Tyler kid won't leave Max alone. The second that I'm not with her, he pounces. Its kinda creepy."

Iggy's eyebrow raised. "Are you sure that's not just because you're jealous?"

I rolled my eyes, not gracing him with a response as the two of us headed into the classroom and quickly located what had become our usual seats. Iggy's was behind mine, and the empty seat next to me was the one always reserved for Max.

"Nick," Lissa said excitedly as she spotted me, practically bouncing over. "Can I sit by you?"

I blinked, and then frowned, shaking my head. "Jenna sits there. She always does."

"Oh, right," Lissa nodded, but I saw her falter for a second. "Won't she mind swapping with me for just a lesson? I wanted to talk to you about computing, and I'm sure that she won't mind sitting with Tyler."

I glanced over to where the dark-haired boy was sitting and frowned. He glanced over at the windows along the side of the classroom as Max walked past, laughing with JJ and Sam, who must have joined them on the journey from the bathrooms, and a sickening smile crossed his face.

"No," I said tersely, pulling the chair next to me under to table with my foot. "Jenna sits here. You can talk to me about computing _in_ computing, tomorrow."

Lissa nodded, disappointment filling her face but barely clouding anger. She headed towards her usual seat, banging her bag onto the floor, and muttered something to Tyler - who glanced over and frowned.

Thankfully, Max chose that moment to practically bounce into the room and into her seat next to me, Tess taking the one behind her. In a rare douse of PDA she leant over and swiftly kissed my cheek, grinning at me as she grabbed her books out of her bag; I smiled a little as the smell of fresh air and spearmint washed over me.

"You alright?" I muttered to her as she hastily scribbled down the notes that the teacher was reeling off a slideshow at an impressive speed. She flashed me a grin and nodded, before hesitating slightly and whispering,

"I've got some stuff to do at lunch. I'm helping a friend with something… but I'll see you afterwards, alright?"

I frowned a little, not liking the fact that – for the first time in fifteen years – Max was keeping secrets from me. If I'd known in advance that this was going to be one of the side effects of agreeing to stay with Anne, I'd have told her to shove it. Unfortunately, it was a little too late for that now.

"Anything interesting?" I asked, hitting a little left of nonchalant and sounding more hurt than anything. Max sighed.

"I'd tell you if I could. You know that as well as I do."

I did, which just left one question: why couldn't she tell me?

* * *

As promised, Max was missing from lunch. As were Sam, Katie and, strangely, Iggy, but I was content to listen to the others' conversations and nod every now and then, pretending I was listening whilst really I was just trying to figure out just what was going on with Max.

To say that she was acting out of character was, well, a complete and utter understatement. Why did she feel that she had to keep secrets from me now? Was this something that was going to start happening more often? I really hoped not, but a small amount of doubt remained in my mind, even when she reappeared with ten minutes or so before the bell.

She grinned at me as she appeared, plopping into my lap with her usual accuracy and grinning up at me (not that I was complaining, to be completely honest with you).

"You're in a strangely good mood," I muttered, kissing her lightly where her jaw met her neck with a small half-smile.

"I can't be in a good mood?" She teased, poking me in the stomach. "Just because you have the emotional range of a brick wall, doesn't meant that I have to, too."

JJ snickered, covering it with a cough when I turned to glare at her.

Iggy and Katie appeared before I had a chance to reply with something witty, closely followed by a flushed-looking Sam, and the conversation shifted to something a little more mundane… homework.

"Miss Macintyre is totally trying to get back at us by setting that four-thousand word essay," JJ groaned, but she was grinning a little despite herself. "Did you see the look on her face when Jen had the note under the table before she could get there and her notes were perfect? And then when Iggy accidently tripped her over—"

"Accidently?" Iggy interrupted with a snort of laugher. "Give me some credit, that was as purposeful was anything! I'll get away with it, of course… one of a rare few perks of being blind."

Tess giggled loudly, and Max and I exchanged a conspiratorial glance. Clearly, Iggy wasn't the only one with a crush… besides, it'd be good for him to get himself a girlfriend.

Maybe then he wouldn't be such a sexist pig.

* * *

"Did you get it?" Tyler muttered under his breath, holding his hand out expectantly for Lissa's cell phone. The red-head handed it over reluctantly, a frown on her pretty face and worry in her green eyes.

"Tyler, I'm not sure about this. They _live_ together, they're not just another couple that've been together a month and are already confessing their love for each other—"

Tyler rolled his eyes.

"Come on, Liss," He sighed, moving forwards and titling her head up to look at him. "Jenna is damn hot, and I _know_ you have a crush on Nick. You want this as much as I do."

Lissa hesitated, before nodding and handing over the phone, refusing to voice her thoughts that although Nick was hot, she'd much prefer to be able to consider herself _Tyler's_ girlfriend. Tyler plugged it into the computer and quickly pulled up the photo that he wanted, before printing it full-size on a sheet of A4 paper.

"Give it to Nick in computing tomorrow, and then do your thing," He instructed. "And I'll make sure that she sees."

Lissa nodded, folding the paper and shoving it into her back pocket and turned to leave. Most of her couldn't believe what the two of them were going to do tomorrow… it took cruel to a whole new level.

* * *

**A/N - Only four reviews for the last chapter? That makes me sad. Don't make me hold chapters for ransom, especially not when I've just un-clogged myself and updates should be coming more frequently!**

**On another note: don't believe everything you read in the next chapter, and don't judge everyone by the actions that they take! Things aren't how they seem, alright? Although most of you will probably be able to work out _how_ they're not how they seem ^^' And I PROMISE that the action and main plot will start picking up again after this little bit of teenage drama, alright?**

**Although, in saying that, part of the plot is already picking up... you just don't know it yet.**

**And, final announcement, BOOK THREE IN THE GUARDIAN EXPERIMENT TRILOGY HAS BEEN NAMED. **

**After this story is finished _CATACLYSM,_ will be released.**


	10. Teenage Drama, Part Two

**Chapter 10 – Teenage Drama; Part Two**

My Friday had seemed fairly promising, until I remembered that I'd promised Lissa that I would talk to her in computing. Still, I convinced Max to dawdle in the corridors with me, so that I was as late as possible to the lesson without getting either of us in trouble (nicely avoiding Lissa trapping me before the lesson started) and then I'd slipped into the only remaining seat.

… Opposite Lissa.

Deciding to just pretend that I hadn't noticed, I hurriedly logged on to the computer and did as the teacher was instructing, hoping that he'd talk his way through the whole lesson and I'd be able to escape before the red-head pounced on me. Unfortunately, with a little less than fifteen minutes until the end of the lesson, he announced that we'd have to work on our projects alone for the remaining time.

Which gave Lissa the perfect opportunity to ambush me.

"Nick!" She hissed, leaning forward over the desk that separated us, narrowly avoiding pulling a chunk of wires out of the back of both my computer _and_ hers.

"What?" I hissed back, barely remembering not to roll my eyes. Maybe Max had been right when she said that the redhead had a crush on me… I really hoped not.

"I'm sorry," She muttered with a sympathetic smile that seemed oddly genuine, pushing a slip of paper across the gap between us. I frowned, taking it and opening it cautiously – half expecting some form of bomb or something to slip out. What I saw wasn't a bomb, but it did make my heart stop in my chest.

"Where did you get this?" I snapped, glancing up at Lissa. She frowned, eyeing the teacher before shaking her head.

"I'll talk to you at the end."

Right, because I could concentrate after _this._

My eyes were drawn once again to the blurry, cell-phone quality photo that Lissa had printed off the computer, taking up most of the A4 page. The figure that my eyes were immediately drawn to was Max, and then my eyes focused a little better, and Sam was also evident.

Max and Sam.

Kissing.

Caught on a camera that conveniently had a date and time at the bottom. According to the yellow digits, the photo had been taken yesterday lunchtime. Just before she'd returned to the group, practically beaming, and settled herself into my lap.

How could she do this to me?

After everything we'd been through together, how could she betray me like this?

It was unbelievable.

My hands were shaking with conflicting emotions; anger, disbelief, hurt… the list went on. Finally, they settled on anger, and I roughly re-folded the paper, shoving it into my jeans pocket as the bell for the end of the lesson rang. Most of the kids were shoving to get out of the door by the last ring, and I watched the teacher join the crowd as I logged off the computer and stood to meet Lissa.

"Where did you get it?" I demanded again, watching as she fidgeted nervously.

"Tyler took it yesterday, at lunch. He sent it to me last night, but I didn't have a chance to get you on your own until now."

I shook my head in disbelief, leaning back against the wall, letting my emotionless mask slide for a long minute. "How could she do this to me?"

There was a long pause, as Lissa watched me carefully, and then turned her head towards the door as a sweet smile with a vindictive edge crossed her face. "I don't know, it was completely uncalled for… She was stupid, but you can get her back. You could make her jealous. Make her feel all of those things that you're feeling now. Give her a taste of her own medicine... that would help, right?"

"What?" I asked, but Lissa was already pressing herself up against me, attacking my lips with her own. I wanted to push her away, I really did. Well, most of me did. But, for the first time ever, I listened to the part of me that wanted revenge.

I kissed Lissa back.

Yeah, I wouldn't be listening to _that_ part of me again.

Someone cleared their throat, and startled, I pushed back from Lissa; my heart stopped dead in its tracks again, because the person stood in the doorway was Max.

"James is looking for you, Nick." She said calmly, but I could see the tears in her eyes. Most of me wondered how I could have done that to her, but a small part of me was still angry. She'd done it first.

"Cool," I said simply, sliding out from Lissa's arms as if it was nothing, and slipping past Max as I headed to where I assumed Iggy was, ignoring the stabbing feeling in my heart.

How had this whole thing happened?

* * *

_Deep breaths._ She coached herself mentally. _Take deep breaths, Max._

Somehow she'd found herself locked in a bathroom stall, trying desperately to hold herself together. It was stupid really; when Jeb had left she'd promised herself that she'd never put anyone in a position where they could hurt her like that again.

She'd never really stopped to consider that Fang ever would, so he'd been the obvious exception.

What a stupid mistake to make.

Trying desperately to keep the tears at bay, Max slammed her head back against the wall of the cubicle, not even bothered by the loud thud that it made.

_"You should have been expecting it, Max. Honestly,"_ The voice chided arrogantly, which really didn't make her feel any better about the situation. _"You can't trust anyone... Not really."_

Fury ignited in her, and she slammed her head back against the cubicle door again with a frustrated scream, hoping against hope that she could just knock the voice right out of her head. Still, she couldn't stop herself from responding.

'_Shut up! I can trust the flock, they'd never let me down! Besides, Fang must have had a reason—'_

_"Perhaps he finally just realised that he deserved better than a waste of space like you."_

Max's heart stopped dead in her chest. Was that it? Had Fang decided that he deserved better than her? That she wasn't good enough for him?

The voice wasn't done there, intent on planting a few more seeds of doubt into her brain before retiring.

_"As for the flock, it's only a matter of time before they realise the same thing. That only leaves Anne, then, doesn't it? Shame she's playing for another team, Max. You see? You're all alone."_

What did the voice mean, that Anne was playing for another team? Did it just mean the FBI, or was it something a lot more sinister? Was she working for The School? Possibilities ran through her mind at an alarming speed, and right as a plan was starting to form, a voice startled her out of her thoughts.

"Jenna?" JJ called gently. "Are you in here?"

Max didn't respond, curling her legs tighter to her chest and holding her breath in the hopes that the other girl would turn around and leave her to her misery.

"It's no good trying to hide. I can see your bag, you idiot."

Well, there went that plan.

Still, Max didn't move, feeling tears sting her eyes again as JJ continued.

"I saw what happened, Jen. With Nick, and Lissa… I'm really sorry," There was a pause, and then a shuffling of feet before JJ tapped lightly on the door. "Look, just let me in. I know you're not into this whole teenage girl stuff, but I promise I'm good at it!"

Max couldn't hold back the slight laugh that forced its way free of her chest, and found herself opening the door before she had even really processed what was happening, but it didn't matter, because as soon as the door was open, JJ was there.

Max usually didn't like physical contact with anyone that wasn't part of her flock, but she couldn't help but collapse gratefully into the elder girls arms as the first of many sobs to come shook her body.

"I'm sorry," She managed around her tears, but JJ shook her head, holding her resolutely.

"Don't be."

Finally her tears slowed and she pulled back, embarrassed as the girl frowned down at her.

"Look," She sighed eventually. "I'm not going to pretend that I know what you're going through, because I don't, but I think I know someone that can help so just… put some cold water on your face and wait here, alright? I'll be back in a minute."

There wasn't really much that Max could do other than she was told, and she moved over to the sinks hesitantly, refusing to look at her reflection for fear that she'd see a broken girl staring back.

_"You should just give up,"_ The voice whispered to her.

She groaned in response, sliding down the counter to position herself once again on the floor, letting her head rest on her knees as the door opened and familiar footsteps made their way inside.

"I always wondered what the inside of the girls bathrooms looked like," The voice announced loudly.

Max shook her head, but a small laugh passed her lips regardless of her sour mood.

"You're blind, Iggy," She reminded the mutant teasingly, and he formed an expression of mock surprise.

"No! How could that have happened?" He teased, before folding himself onto the floor next to her and wrapping an arm around her shoulder. Max allowed herself to be pressed into his side, once again struck with the awfulness of the situation.

"How could he?" She muttered miserably, nestling her face into Iggy's shirt as soundless tears slipped down her face again.

"I wish I knew," Iggy whispered back, his voice practically ringing with sincerity. "But we're going to work this out, alright? I know I haven't known you and Fang for as long as you've known each other, but this isn't like him."

Max nodded against him, feeling her tears draw to a close.

"I think," Iggy said haltingly. "That you should go home, otherwise you're going to be stuck with him for another three periods worth of school."

Max hesitated, her thoughts flying to her flock, before she realised that Iggy would ensure that they were safe, and nodded a little.

"Alright," Iggy nodded resolutely, pleased that she was going without a fight, but Max wasn't done yet… his muscles were too tense for that. "Just… don't start anything, okay? Promise?"

The fact that it took Iggy a few seconds to agree was proof enough that he'd had every intention of doing just that.

"I promise."

* * *

Max didn't turn up for the next lesson, or the one after that, or the one after that.

I'd spent the moments where everyone was filing into the classroom after lunch tense, hands clenched underneath the table and heart pounding in my chest, but she'd never appeared.

Somehow, that was worse.

Iggy, however, had arrived to the room ten minutes late and hadn't so much as glanced in my direction since he'd taken his seat; my eyes were constantly flitting from where he was sitting with his fists clenched and blind eyes staring blindly forwards, and to where Sam was happily laughing with Luke and Rose.

It took every ounce of self-control that I had not to launch myself across the room and punch him straight in the face. How could he act so happy, when only yesterday he'd been cheating on his girlfriend with _mine_.

Of course, the mood right there had pretty much set the scene for the rest of the day. Well, that and the fact that Lissa was practically stuck to me like glue, despite my insistences that what had happened this morning had been a mistake.

Finally, the final bell rang and Iggy and I headed out to meet the others, and to wait for Anne to come and pick us up. Iggy still hadn't said anything to me, and every time I opened my mouth he turned his head away, so I'd simply given up.

"Fang?" Angel frowned when we reached the others, tugging lightly on the bottom of my blazer. "Where's Max?"

I opened my mouth to answer, but Ig got there first, replying tersely, "She went home, Angel. She's had a tough day."

The statement was coupled with what should have been a searing glare in my direction, but my mind was already putting two and two together and coming up with two answers in one. Not only had Max skipped her lessons, but she'd also seen fit to skip off and leave the rest of us to our own devices (which, right there, was clearly an example of _great_ leadership) and clearly had told Iggy what she'd seen.

Conveniently failing to mention the part where, just a day earlier, she'd been making out with Sam. I made a mental note to inform him of that.

He might as well have the full story if he was going to so blatantly pick sides.

"Are you sure she's alright?" Nudge quizzed with a frown. "Mara said that she'd seen her at lunch time, and that she thought that she'd been crying."

"She'll be fine," Iggy said, but he was still glowering darkly at me over Angel's head. Because, obviously, _that_ wasn't suspicious.

Thankfully, Anne chose that moment to pull in, and I slipped into the passenger seat without another word, ignoring her as she glanced straight at me.

"Do you know what was wrong with Max?" She asked quietly as we pulled out of the car park, clearly assuming that it was me that had told Max to go home, and trying to make sure that the rest of the kids didn't hear her. "The office called me to pick her up, and she was a mess. She's been locked in her room ever since."

I shrugged non-committedly, and Iggy snorted loudly from the back, shaking his head in what appeared to be contempt. I rolled my eyes, slouching back into the seat in typical teenager fashion and turning to face out of the window.

Unfortunately, the side mirror there gave me the perfect view of Anne, whose eyes spent the rest of the car journey flickering between Iggy and I with a look of complete confusion on her face.

Finally, I escaped into my room, all too aware that both of the doors to Max's room were firmly locked, and remained that way until after dinner.

At the moment, life pretty much sucked.

* * *

**So, there you have it. Sorry all of you Lissa supporters, but I had to add something like this in for the plot to make sense, and Lissa and Tyler just... well, _fit._ The main part of the drama will be over in a few chapters, don't worry, although it'll take a little longer than that for Max and Fang's relationship to fix. Please, no hating! Besides, now that this is out of the way, we can get on with the main plot, can't we?**


	11. The Truth

**Chapter 11 – The Truth**

I didn't sleep that night.

Judging from Max's face when I arrived for breakfast, neither had she. It was no surprise really, the two of us had ensured that both of the bathroom doors had remained firmly shut all night, and it was the first night I could remember even trying to sleep without her at least in the same room as me.

The two of us hadn't spoken since the "Lissa Incident", and the few times that Anne had tried to speak to me I'd remained passive until she'd given up and retreated.

Thank goodness it was Saturday.

Finally, breakfast passed – thankfully, without incident – and Max even plastered on a fake smile for the kids, and agreed to take Angel and The Gasman for a mid-day flight. Max had open-endedly left the flight open for all flock members, and the way that her brown eyes had locked on to me had proved that even I was welcome.

I declined.

Thankfully, Nudge decided that her homework had to come first, and Iggy tersely informed the room that he, "had something to do", so my decision was overlooked by the two youngest members of the flock.

Of course, it soon became apparent that Iggy's "something" was to sidetrack Nudge and, I soon realised when they let themselves into my room unannounced, ambush me. I was unsure as to whether it was Iggy or Max that had told Nudge – assuming that it was more likely to be the pyro than our leader – but the unhappy look on her face proved that someone had.

"So," Iggy demanded stiffly, letting the door shut after him as he crossed his arms over his chest. "Care to explain why JJ found Max crying in the girl's bathrooms? Or why you decided that it was necessary to make-out with Lissa ad pretend like it was perfectly alright? Because it isn't, you know."

Anger bubbled in my chest, and my hand was moving before I even really decided what the best course of action was, flinging the A4 picture across the room from where it had been resting next to me on my bed.

Nudge deftly snatched it out of the air as it threatened to fly past her, and her eyes widened as she took in what was before her.

For a long, agonising moment, she didn't say anything, just studied the picture with a confused expression on her face, and then Iggy interrupted.

"Hello? Blind kid in the room? Anyone feel like sharing, or am I going have to wait around until I gain some magical new power, or, alternatively, a new pair of eyes?"

"Sorry," Nudge muttered, before glancing back down at the paper and shaking her head. For a moment, I thought she was shaking her head in disgust of Max's actions, but when she glanced back up, her attention was on me.

"You're an idiot."

"Hey!" For a second, I almost thought that I'd defended myself, and then Iggy continued. "I'm _still_ blind, y'know!"

"Sorry," Nudge groaned again, but seemed a little more happy this time. "Fang has a picture of what looks like Max kissing one of those guys you hang out with what is it… Luke? No, that's the wrong one… Sam? Sam! That's it!"

"A picture of what _looks like Max?_" I frowned, moving forwards and snatching it back. Nudge rolled her eyes, stepping to my side and pointing out all of the things that I should have noticed to begin with.

"Yeah, Max has pink in her hair." Nudge told me in a "duh" voice.

"So?" I asked, raising an eyebrow. "She still does in the picture… here, see?"

I pointed to the pink streaks framing of the girl caught in intense make-out.

"No," Nudge groaned, as if I had just confirmed that I really was an idiot. "_This_ girl is wearing pink feather earrings – which are totally against the regulations, but also totally cute – which brings me to my second point. Max doesn't have her ears pierced! Besides, this was taken Thursday lunchtime."

"So?"

"So," Iggy cut in with an embarrassed look on his face. "She was with_ me_ Thursday lunchtime. We went back to talk to Mrs Aaronson about maths again. She needed parental permission for something that she wants to try, but I didn't want to ask Anne, so Max and I went to try and convince her that it wasn't necessary."

I blinked, frowned, looked at the paper again and resisted the urge to bang my head off a wall.

"This isn't Max."

"No," Iggy groaned, sinking into my desk chair. "_That_, by the sounds of it, is Katie, which means that you've just made a really big mistake."

"Huge_,_" Nudge felt necessary to correct. "Did you see her at breakfast this morning? She's _way_ torn up about this whole thing…"

She cut herself off, seemingly realising that she really wasn't helping much.

"You need to talk to her," Iggy advised.

Right, as if I hadn't worked that one out already.

I nodded, shepherding the two of them out of my room and opening both of the bathroom's side doors so that I'd be able to see when Max entered her room after the flight; probably with her wings slightly unfurled behind her and a hectic flush on her face.

Finally, after what seemed like an agonising wait, her door opened and I spotted her, wings open like I'd predicted. She headed inside, and stopped dead when she saw that the doors were open, her face openly showing her confusion as she turned to look at me for the first time in over a day.

"Fang?" Her face was unreadable as she took an unsure step towards me. "Are you… did you want something?"

"We need to talk," I said gently, trying to make it come across as gently as possible. From the look on Max's face, I figured it more sounded like I was mad at _her_, when really the only person that I was mad at was myself.

She nodded a little, slowly heading forwards and into my room, glancing around a little unsure of herself as if to make sure that it wasn't a trap, or that Lissa wasn't going to suddenly leap out from under the bed or something.

Finally, her eyes rose to meet mine – the red rims making my heart pang painfully in my chest – and she offered me what I assumed was supposed to be a smile. It came out as a grimace, and I had a brief flash of doubt about whether I could do this… how _had_ I done this to her?

What had happened to us?

"I made a huge mistake yesterday," I admitted, frowning when her eyes dropped again to her shoes. Where had our fearless leader gone? Why had she given me this much power over her? I didn't deserve it.

"Lissa cornered me yesterday in computing, and she gave me this," I tried to explain, the words catching in my throat as I passed the picture to her.

She took it with shaking hands, and studied it for a long moment as her brow creased in confusion.

"A picture of Katie and Sam? Why—Oh. You thought it was me." I could see the puzzle pieces forming together in her head and she sighed, shaking her head a little and throwing the piece of paper back onto the desk.

"This sucks," Her expression was unreadable, but despite what I'd pictured when envisioning how this would go, I didn't see an ounce of anger in her facial expression, or her voice. What the hell was going on in that pretty little head of hers?

"I was angry, trying to work out why you'd cheat on me, and Lissa was kissing me before I really knew what was going on. I know it was awful of me, but I swear that I've never been more sorry in my entire life. I love you," I tried to catch her gaze, near pleading with her, but she kept her eyes away.

I think it was then that I finally realised that I'd lost her.

"I know," She said, taking a few steps back, and finally raising her eyes to meet mine… they were shining with tears even as she blinked them back. She took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and then said quietly, "And I love you to, but that doesn't change anything. It can't."

My heart seemed to stop dead in my chest for the hundredth time in a two-day period.

"Max, please," I whispered. "I'm so sorry… we can put this behind us, we can make this work. I swear that kissing her didn't mean anything—"

She shook her head, the first of her tears falling as she sighed and forced a small smile onto her face.

"You don't get it, do you?"

"Get what?" I asked, dizzy at the thought that this could really be it for us. This could be the end.

"Our whole relationship, everything that we've built up over the past few years, that was built on trust…" She took a deep breath, still fighting the tears back.

"And you don't trust me?" I asked, desperately trying to work out what was going through her head. It was all just too much for me to handle. Her being angry? I could have handled it. Her being upset? It would have sucked, but we could have gotten over it. But this? This… grim acceptance? It was so unlike her that it was practically scary.

Her expression showed shock for a brief second, and she shook it furiously.

"No! Of course I trust you… I'd trust you with my life, and I have, but what happened yesterday? That tells me that _you_ don't trust _me_, and I can't live with that," She took another deep breath, and I could see that she was hating every minute of this. "I thought you knew that you could trust me unconditionally, but yesterday proves that you don't, and we can't work like that."

"So what?" I asked, suddenly angry at her. "That's it? We never talk to each other again?"

Her eyes flew back to my face. "No! Of course not! You're my best friend, Fang; I'm just saying that – for the moment – I… I don't think that we can be any more than that. You need time to figure everything out, and so do I. For the sake of the flock, we have to put our feelings to one side and go back to the way that things used to be."

"Max," I tried one last time, desperate now. "_Please_."

"I'm sorry," She whispered, her tears finally falling freely down her face. "I can't… Just, don't let this effect the flock, alright?"

And then she turned, bolting into the bathroom and shutting the door behind her. The shower started up a few seconds later, and for a long second I thought that she was going to climb in and de-stress, and then I heard the muffled sobs.

I knew without looking what she would be doing. The shower provided a noise to cover her sobs, and she'd have her faced pressed to a towel to try and keep the noises as quiet as possible.

Whether it was for my benefit or the flock's I wasn't sure, but I hated that she was in there. I hated that she was crying, and that she was alone.

Most of all, I hated that I had done it to her.

* * *

**Alright, so I suck. In my defence, I've had a lot on my plate, included dreaded EXAMS. Thankfully, they finish next week, and then I'll be all yours!**


End file.
